This is an online event.

Even though it provides powerful insight into why and how we came to see ourselves the way we do, the history of science and medicine is many times overlooked in popular conversation. In this café, the neuroscientist Pedro Ferreira and the psychotherapist Mary Heffernan — who both find themselves researching the history of mental health at Birkbeck, University of London — will explore what the humanities can teach us about the ways of knowing ourselves, and what a historical perspective might add to our society’s understanding of mental health.

This café will consist of an informal conversation between two history students and a genuinely relaxed dialogue with the audience. The conversation will cover how and why these professionals found themselves researching History PhDs in parallel with their disparate daytime careers, what agendas lie behind their research, and what they hope to achieve as two budding scholars who find themselves exploring the same field while coming from quite different places.