Royal College of Psychiatrists

ROYAL COLLEGE OF PSYCHIATRISTS’

PHILOSOPHY SPECIAL INTEREST GROUP

Draft Minutes of Committee Meeting

Held in the Royal College of Psychiatrists

Friday 27 April 2007

1(a) Attendance: Dr Gwen Adshead (GA), Dr Ralf-Peter Behrendt (RP-B), Dr Man Chung (MC), Dr Subodh Dave (SD), Dr David Foreman (DF), Professor Bill Fulford (KWMF) (Secretary), Dr Julian Hughes (JCH) (Chair and Minutes), Professor Eric Matthews (EM), Dr Michael Yousif (MY)

1(b) Apologies: Dr Matthew Broome (MB)

2 Minutes: The minutes of the Committee Meeting held on Friday 28 April 2006 were accepted as a correct record. The only amendment is in Section 7, where the initials NB should be replaced by MB.

3 Report of Business Meeting:

A Business Meeting was scheduled to take place at the Annual College Meeting on 11 July 2006 in Glasgow. Unfortunately there was some confusion over the room and, in the event, only JCH attended.

4 Treasurer’s Business:

Dr Hugh Jones (HJ) was unfortunately not able to attend. Treasurer’s Business is, therefore, deferred until the Business Meeting.

5 Regional Groups:

Institute of Psychiatry – MB has now left and confirms that the meetings continue, but we should try to establish a contact point in order to help advertise the meetings.

Action: JCH/MB

The Scottish Group continues to meet and had a very successful meeting in September. We hope to have a report in the next newsletter. In addition, a local group in Aberdeen has held its inaugural meeting at which one of the speakers was Peter Hacker talking on the philosophical basis of neuroscience. The next meeting is on 10 May and then a further meeting is to be held in the autumn. Dr John Callender is the organiser and we shall make contact with him to highlight the activities of the group.

Action: EM/JCH

The HUMAN Group in Nottingham remains active with its one monthly meetings. We were also pleased to hear that they are pursuing the survey of teaching philosophy as part of MRCPsych training. The intention is to contact clinical tutors.

Action: SD to pursue

Sheffield – RP-B has reported that these meetings have ceased.

6 Activities Report:

A. Conferences in last year

The conferences within the last year will be reported in the newsletter. These include Leiden in June/July, the College meeting in Glasgow, the Royal Institute of Philosophy at the University of Birmingham in May 2006 and the Conference of the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health held in Toronto in May 2006.

Action: All involved in conferences to write/organize reports

B. Future confirmed meetings:

- Philosophy/Spirituality SIG joint meeting 4 May in College.

- 10th International Conference on Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology to take place in Sun City, South Africa, between 26-30 August 2007.

- There is a one day session at the Annual College Meeting on Values Based Practice to be held on Thursday 21 June 2007 in Edinburgh.

- The Philosophy SIG is also supporting a meeting of the Philadelphia Association on Saturday 13 October 2007. This is conjointly organised by the Philosophy SIG and the Philadelphia Association and is the 4th RD Laing Conference.

- There is a further series of conferences, which we have advertised in our last newsletter, again taking place in the University of Birmingham in May 2007.

C. Planned future meetings:

- The British Psychological Society have a Consciousness and Experiential Psychology Section who have approached us asking that we consider the possibility of a joint meeting between their section and the Philosophy SIG. MC has kindly agreed to liaise concerning this conference.

Action: MC (JCH to forward appropriate emails)

- Journal of Ethics in Mental Health wish to hold their 2008 Conference in the UK in Newcastle. We shall ask them if they are willing to make this a joint venture with the Philosophy SIG in which we might sponsor a session, which could include funding for a prize advertised through the College.

- Action: JCH to pursue

- The Critical Psychiatry Network have approached us asking that we consider a joint meeting with them at the 2008 Royal College Annual Conference. Professor Phil Thomas had contacted us about this. The proposals have to be in by June. We are keen to pursue this possibility.

Action: SD, with information provided by KWMF and JCH

- SD made the suggestion, which was accepted, that we should try to establish a pattern of three meetings a year as follows:

1) A smaller meeting within the College along the lines of the Spirituality Group’s meetings to pursue a theme of our own choosing. This could on occasions be a joint meeting with another SIG. For instance, we continue to keep in mind the idea of a joint meeting with the Trans-Cultural SIG.

2) One outside meeting a year, which will usually be a joint meeting with another organisation, e.g. The Journal of Ethics in Mental Health or the BPS as mentioned above, or a variety of other institutions.

3) A session each year at the Annual College Meeting, which again could be a conjoint session as suggested above by the Critical Psychiatry Network.

This means that for next year (2008) we already have in hand the possibility of an outside meeting for the Journal of Ethics in Mental Health and an Annual College Meeting with The Critical Psychiatry Network. We still need to consider a meeting within the College, such as the meeting proposed with the Trans-Cultural SIG.

It was emphasised at the meeting that any of us with contacts with outside institutions (e.g. universities) who may wish to have joint meetings with us (and on whom we may be able to rely for organisational help), should be approached.

7 Publications and Communications:

Newsletter: A further newsletter has been sent out containing information about future meetings. This was newsletter No 28, sent in March 2007. Our next newsletter should be planned for September/October 2007.

Action: ALL members of the Committee to send information concerning conferences, or book reviews to JCH as soon as possible.

Website: We were very pleased to welcome Dr Michael Yousif to the Committee. Michael has agreed to liaise with the College about our website. We have been told that he could expect some training, either at a distance or in person, from Julia Burnside (Website Manager) and, if difficulties, we can contact Martin Georgieve (Web Developer). We shall re-write the general introduction to the website and then attach minutes, annual reports to council, newsletters, publications and linked publications, details of forthcoming meetings and, in addition, we can establish links with the International Network of Philosophy and Psychiatry. Anyone with suitable material should send this to Michael. The possibility of a ‘chat room’ will also be investigation

Action: JCH and all

8 Education and Research:

GA, KWMF and SD have met with Gareth Holsgrove and looked at the curriculum. It contains plenty of ethics and mention of values, but there is slightly less philosophy in the curriculum, although there is some room for conceptual work. We discussed the importance of assessing ethics and philosophy as a way to encourage the content of the curriculum in this area. We know that MCQs have been prepared. We wondered whether it might be possible to have OSCEs to do with ethics or philosophy.

Action: JCH to contact the chief examiner and SD to contact Dinesh Bughra

As noted above, the Nottingham Group is also carrying out a survey of teaching of philosophy within the MRCPsych.

We note that we have been approached by the College to consider contributing to eCPD. This information will be circulated and we should all contribute.

Action: JCH and All

We continue to hope that a series of three or four articles might be publishable in ‘Advances in Psychiatric Treatment’.

Action: GA to discuss with Editorial Board

9 Any other business:

1 KWMF reported on the developments at UCLAN. The Institute for Philosophy, Diversity and Mental Health wishes to collaborate with us by establishing some links. This might lead to future joint conferences and membership of the committee by staff from the Institute. The Philosophy SIG Committee welcomed these developments wholeheartedly.

2 We noted the Department of Health (DoH) initiative. Through the National Institute for Mental Health DoH are running research on diagnosis involving both philosophers and psychiatrists. The programme by the DoH is looking at guidance on ‘comprehensive diagnosis’ with the emphasis being on developing a broad and meaningful model. This brings together the social care and mental health agendas. There has been remarkable support for the Philosophy of Psychiatry in this field from the College with the College’s President, Professor Sheila Hollings, agreeing to co-chair this programme.

3 KWMF reported that Richard Marley, Editor for Medical Publishing at Cambridge University Press, is proposing a series on values based medicine. If any of us have work relevant to the issues of complex and conflicting values we should consider constructing outline proposals to be sent to KWMF. Action: All

4 A new chair for the Philosophy SIG needs to be elected. It seems that MB may be in a position to consider this in one year’s time. Meanwhile anyone else from the SIG, including the SIG Committee can put themselves forward as long as they are members or fellows of the College. For now, however, we shall be seeking guidance from the College concerning whether JCH can remain Chair of the Philosophy SIG for one more year.

Action: JCH

11 Date and time of next meeting:

Business Meeting, Thursday 21 July 2007 13.00-14.00 in Edinburgh during the Annual Conference.

Annual Committee Meeting 2008: JCH to arrange.

JC/AM

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