This two-day conference examines the potential risks and rewards of using narrative practices in mental health contexts. It will reflect on the various forms narrative practices can take and the different roles they can play in enhancing or diminishing psychological well-being, including their use in addressing serious conditions (for example, alleviating depression; aiding addiction recovery). It will consider how they operate in both clinical settings and as-yet unregulated contexts, such as individuals conversing with LLMs for therapeutic ends. It will investigate whether and to what extent narrative practices can meet explanatory, scope, and ethical challenges related to their responsible use.
 

Keynote Speakers:

• Shaun Gallagher (University of Memphis)
• Şerife Tekin (SUNY Upstate Medical University)

 
Plenary Speakers:

• Benedetta Cogo (University of Wollongong)
• Emily Hughes (Macquarie University)
• Daniel D. Hutto (University of Wollongong)
• Douglas McConnell (Macquarie University)
• Richard Menary (Macquarie University)
• Lorna Moxham (University of Wollongong)
• Dominic Murphy (University of Sydney)
   

This event will be of interest to mental health researchers and practitioners, philosophers of psychiatry, clinicians, psychologists, service designers, and policymakers.

This is an in-person event. See the schedule of the event below.

Participants are asked to make their own arrangements for lunch and refreshments.

This conference is free and open to all, but ticket numbers are limited.

Registration is essential and closes on Friday 12 December 2025 at 11.59 pm (AEST).
  
This conference is generously funded by an internal research grant from the University of Wollongong (UOW) and it is hosted by the School of Liberal Arts.

Please contact Lorena Sganzerla or Benedetta Cogo if you have queries.

Day 1 - Academic talks:

 

9:30-10:30 Emily Hughes – "Signifying the autistic sense of self"

10:30-11:30 Dominic Murphy – “Varieties of narrative explanation”

11:30-11:45 Morning tea

11:45-12:45 Richard Menary – TBC

12:45-14:00 Lunch

14:00-15:00 Lorna Moxaham – TBC

15:00-16:00 Douglas McConnell – “Why self-narration is good for you” 

16:00-16:15 Afternoon tea

16:15-17:15 Benedetta Cogo – “Making room for narrative practices in psychiatry”

17:15-17:30 Wrap up – off to conference dinner

 

Day 2 – Keynotes and Roundtable:

09:00-10:30 Shaun Gallagher – “Narratives in real self-patterns”

10:30-10:45 Morning tea

10:45-12:15 Şerife Tekin – “Bridging science and testimony: the Multitudinous Self Model for a humanist psychiatry”

12:15-13:30 Lunch

13:30-14:45 Daniel Hutto – Project pitch & Q&A

14:45-15:15 Afternoon tea

15:15-17:00 Roundtable

17:00-17:15 Concluding remarks