Research project
A zero-sum game? Exploring a both-and approach to biological disorder and religious experience in relation to Christians who experience psychosis and/or mania
- Start date: 16 September 2024
- End date: 15 September 2027
- Funder: The British Academy
- Primary investigator: Hannah Waite
Value
£364,652.80
Description
In society and within faith communities, our perception of illness predominantly relies on third-person perspectives grounded in medical research and evidence. While this viewpoint serves a vital purpose, it inadvertently perpetuates an injustice by side-lining first-person narratives of illness. This is particularly evident in faith communities' handling of first-person experiences of mania and psychosis as an individual’s ability to judge reality for themselves is questioned. For instance, when a Christian recounts their encounters with mania or psychosis, these encounters are often pigeonholed as either symptomatic of illness or indicative of a genuine religious experience, seldom both. This categorisation imposes an external, mutually exclusive framework on these personal experiences, leading to the neglect or suppression of individuals' first-person perspectives. This research challenges this mutual exclusivity, striving to amplify marginalised first-person accounts and foster a more inclusive 'both/and' approach that challenge the perceived dichotomy of first person/third person and medical/religious interpretations. The research uses qualitative research and semi-structured interviews to access first-person experiences and narratives of religious experiences, psychosis, and/or mania to examine if, and how experiences during mania and psychosis, specifically religious experiences, may be both symptoms of a clinical diagnosis, and meaningful religious experience.