Writing Well and Writing to Get Well 4 Podcast
What can writers and teachers of Creative Writing learn from psychiatry, neuroscience, and other medical disciplines about the links between creativity and mental illness?
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Lily Dunn, Nathan Filer and Agata Vitale (Photo by Oscar Windsor-Smith)
The podcast from the fourth Friday evening event, which took place on Friday 19th May 2017, can be listened to here:
Nathan Filer, author of The Shock of the Fall, and Agata Vitale, Senior Lecturer in Abnormal/Clinical Psychology at Bath Spa University, discuss Creative Writing and Mental Health with Lily Dunn.
Nathan Filer originally trained and worked as a mental health nurse, then later as a mental health researcher at the University of Bristol. His debut novel The Shock of the Fall – which describes the life of a young man with schizophrenia – was published in 2013 to wide critical acclaim. It won The Costa Book of the Year, The Betty Trask Prize, The National Book Award for Popular Fiction and The Writers’ Guild Award for Best First Novel.
A critic of government cuts to NHS mental health care services, in 2014 Filer was named a Nursing Times Nursing Leader for influencing the way the public thinks about mental illness and mental health nursing. He lives in Bristol with his wife and two children, and lectures in Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.
Agata Vitale is a Senior Lecturer in Abnormal/ Clinical Psychology at Bath Spa University. Agata’s research interest focuses on assessing the quality of community mental health care from both the service users’ and the health professionals’ perspective.
She is also interested in developing community based interventions to promote the integration of asylum seekers and refugees in England. Agata is currently involved in developing a creative writing intervention for refugees based in Bristol. The aims of this intervention are to promote refugees’ well-being by strengthening their self-esteem, self-development and social relationships, and to support their longer-term integration by encouraging their written and spoken English, acculturation and ability to contribute to the community.
These events are funded by the Birkbeck/Wellcome Trust Institutional Strategic Support Fund (ISSF).
Tagged: Creative Writing, mental health
