Philosophy - and why philosophy now for psychiatrists

Sue Lutton is a Consultant Psychiatrist and psychotherapist in private practice, and Consultant Psychiatrist to the Association for Services for Torture and Trauma, working with refugees and asylum seekers. She has developed trauma‑informed models of care for complex post‑traumatic stress disorder and plays an active role in supervision and psychotherapy training. With a longstanding interest in the arts and literature, she is Chair of the WA Section of Philosophy and Humanities and Binational Chair of the RANZCP Section of Philosophy and Humanities in Psychiatry. A former Director of WA Postgraduate Training in Psychiatry and member of the National Committee for Examinations, she also previously served on the Editorial Board of the RANZCP College Journal. She holds a PhD in Classics and Ancient History and brings these perspectives into her clinical work.

Dr Andrew Howie  is the New Zealand representative on the RANZCP Section of Philosophy and Humanities and he has been closely involved in the development and delivery of the RANZCP Structured Learning Activity in Critical Thinking, the Position Statement on Religion and Spirituality, and other ethics-focused educational initiatives, with a particular interest in how philosophical methods can strengthen everyday psychiatric practice.
He has convened and chaired multiple College symposia in these areas.

A past Chair of the RANZCP Section of Rural Psychiatry, he has over two decades of clinical experience across New Zealand and Australia, including senior leadership roles in inpatient, community, forensic, rural, and Māori mental health services.  He is a Fellow of RANZCP, and International Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and an Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Department of Psychological Medicine at the University of Auckland.

He holds a Bachelor of Divinity with Distinction and a Diploma of Professional Ethics, and his academic and teaching work spans psychiatric ethics, values-based practice, spirituality, and clinical reasoning. He has published and presented internationally on philosophy and psychiatry, forensic ethics, cultural humility, and the impaired practitioner.

Anna Bergqvist is Reader in Philosophy at Manchester Metropolitan University and Director of the Values-Based Theory Network at St Catherine’s Collaborating Centre for Values-Based Practice, University of Oxford. Her work focuses on metaethics and aesthetics, the philosophy of psychiatry and public mental health, and creative health. She is editor of Philosophy and Museums (2016), Evaluative Perception (2018) and Lived Experience in Philosophy and Mental Health (2023),and has published widely on objectivity and value across disciplines. She is currently writing a monograph on narrative particularism and the self, and co-editing two major volumes: The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Public Mental Health (Oxford University Press) and A Handbook of Phenomenology, Values-based Practice and Shared Decision-Making in Personalised Mental Health Care (Springer Nature).

KWM (Bill) Fulford is Fellow of St Catherine’s College and Member the Philosophy Faculty, University of Oxford; Emeritus Professor Philosophy and Mental Health, University of Warwick Medical School; and Founder Director the Collaborating Centre for Values-based Practice, St Catherine’s College, Oxford (valuesbasedpractice.org). Previous posts: Honorary Consultant Psychiatrist, University of Oxford; Special Adviser for Values-Based Practice in the Department of Health, London.

His publications include Moral Theory and Medical Practice, The Oxford Textbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry, and The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy and Psychiatry. He is Lead Editor for the Oxford book series International Perspectives in Philosophy and Psychiatry and Founder Editor and Chair of the Advisory Board of the international journal Philosophy, Psychiatry, & Psychology (PPP). His co-authored Essential Values-based Practice (2012, second edition forthcoming), is the launch volume for a book series that he edits for Cambridge University Press on Values-based Medicine.

He was awarded the 2022 Margrit Egnér Foundation Award (Zurich) for outstanding achievements in the areas of anthropological and humanistic psychology; and the 2023 Aristotle Gold Medal for Life-Time Achievement in Psychiatry, from the International Society of Neurobiology & Psychopharmacology (ISNP) in cooperation with the World Psychiatric Association (WPA).

Temi Metseagharun is the current chair of the RCPsych Philosophy Special Interest Group.

He is a working psychiatrist and Specialist in General Adult, Old Age and Liaison Psychiatry. Currently working as a Consultant Psychiatrist, Armadale Health Service, Mount Nasura – part of East Metropolitan Health Service, Western Australia. He was a Former Acting Director, Clinical Services for Mental Health, Western Australia Country Service (WACHS) – Pilbara and was involved in Aboriginal Mental Health and Rural Psychiatry Training in the region.

Temi a current trainer/supervisor for RANZCP and previously worked as a trainer/supervisor for RCPsych and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough NHS Foundation Trust (CPFT) - associated with University of Cambridge. His teaching experience at CPFT included the teaching and supervision of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT). Temi has also authored several commentaries and had letters published in journals. His MA in philosophy (of Biological and Cognitive Sciences) is from the University of Bristol, UK, and had previously submitted, and continues to work on a PhD proposal on “Thought Processing Disorders” – An alternative way of understanding severe mental disorders.