Psychiatry & Neurodiversity

Psychiatry & Neurodiversity – love or war? a talk & discussion with Michael Jewell

SATURDAY | 11.15 – 12.15 | MIND

Michael is a forensic psychiatrist in training having spent the last two years working in New Zealand’s largest female prison. He has a special interest in analytic philosophy, particularly how it applies to mental health. His academic credentials include a PGDip in philosophy and mental health. Clinically, Michael is seeing an increase in patients who identify as Neurodivergent. On the face of it, given their conflicting medical statuses, mental illness talk and neurodivergent talk are in opposition. He hopes that a conceptual analysis of the term ‘neurodivergent’ will provide the ground-rules for collaboration, rather than competition. In turn, this will open-up a loving, not warring, dialogue between psychiatric and neurodivergent communities.