Registration from 09:00

Conference 09:30 - 16:30

• Will Day - Photovoice, with and without the voice: combining collaging, phenomenology and photographs.

• Rachel Temple, Michael Larkin, and colleagues from the young persons' Agency-in-Practice team - Dialogical Co-analysis: a new methodology for conducting qualitative analysis with young people as co-researchers.

• Mikołaj Zarzycki, Shioma-Lei Craythorne & Kisane Prutton - applying Polyphonic Photo Analysis in phenomenological research.

• Invited discussion: Lisa Bortolotti - Epistemic injustice, agency, and youth mental health.

• Nathan Thomas - Understanding Experience using a Narrative Variation of Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis (NIPA).

• Invited discussion: Zoë Boden Stuart - Medications and care: a reflexive workshop exploring embodiment, spatiality and meaning.

Day 2 Friday 7th February will be largely in conference format:

The PHaR team-  IPA clinics: If you have an IPA work-in-progress that could use some troubleshooting, let us know when you register that you would like to book a consultation slot with one of our experienced IPA researchers. Please note these need to be pre-booked.

Mini-workshops:

• Charlie Gunn - A better recipe: collaborative, accessible study design and participant information through the use of edible and creative methodologies when working with vulnerable participants.

• Laura Martin - The use of creative prompts to support an IPA interview.

• Julie Kane - Exploring the experience of community and mental health through zines: contributing to a sense of belonging for young people.

Works-in-progress:

• Jess Webster - From Lego-balancing to Information Sharing – how do you make the jump?

• Michael Larkin - Finding an ethical and just way forward for phenomenologically-informed qualitative research in psychology.

Invited discussion:

• Jo Billington & Shioma-Lei Craythorne - Adapting IPA to work inclusively with diverse ways of being.

Talks:

• Ainhoa Rodriguez-Muguruza & Arantza Etxebarria-Agiriano - The concept of “Relational Health”: How menstruating bodies are key for understanding health.

• Joanna Farr & Rachel Starr - Understanding young people’s everyday experiences using mobile phone video diaries, film and IPA.

• Penny Priest - From Outsight to Team Of One: engaging phenomenology to communicate psychological theory through fiction.

• Sally Latham - Narrative therapy and the falsehood objection.

• Jodie Russell - Intersectional invisibility and its impact on belongingness and being understood.

"Practitioners' experiences of holding when delivering art therapy, compared with arts-for-health activities"

191 Fazeley St

Deritend

Birmingham

B5 5SE

https://www.digbeth.com/getting-here

This former warehouse and church was reimagined in the early 2000s to create a stunning venue in the heart of Digbeth, located under the soaring ceilings of the church or overlooking over the courtyard.

I just went through another round of attracting imposter participants after advertising on Twitter... it feels like that way of advertising is gone.... and it might be time to go back to old-fashioned, more personal ways...

Anyway, I decided to do some digging and found quite a bit of research on that issue. In case if useful, I am posting links/titles of resources here.

 

--

Natalia

Helen Hewson, Niall Gailbraith, Claire Jones & Gemma Heath

A call for papers will be sent around in the next few weeks but the anticipated theme is something around relationships and mental health / interpersonal aspects of mental health.

THEME: Relationships and Mental Health.

WHERE: The Exchange, Birmingham.

WHEN: Tuesday 12th May, 2026.

Submissions

We would like to invite proposals at this time and welcome proposals for papers, symposia, discussions, workshops or other academic activities which draw upon phenomenological concepts or experiential methods, and which engage with mental health and relationships, or the process of understanding their experience and meaning.

As always, we are interested to hear about works-in-progress and to host discussions about methodological and conceptual innovations, dilemmas and challenges. Contributions can include conceptual, methodological or applied work. We look forward to hosting speakers from a variety of backgrounds including philosophy, psychology, social science, lived experience, and healthcare. Submissions from early career researchers are welcome.

Proposals should be submitted by email to phar-aston@outlook.com by Friday 20th March 2026. Decisions will be announced by the end of March.

We do not propose to have a poster session. We are keen to support creative approaches to presentation, engagement and discussion. If you have an idea for a format which is unusual, or which may require a specific configuration of space, please contact us to discuss it, on the email address above. If you’re searching for inspiration, the Liberating Structures website (click on the boxes at www.liberatingstructures.com/ls/ to explore) has lots of interesting ideas.

Format for individual submissions

Please write ‘2026 Submission’ in the subject header of your email.

Please attach a Word document containing an abstract and title for your proposed contribution, and your preferred format.

Please email it to phar-aston@outlook.com by Friday 20th March 2026.

Registration

An Eventbrite link for registration will be available very soon.

Please note that this conference will be in-person only and no travel or accommodation bursaries are available. The registration cost will be kept as low as possible and will be announced imminently.

Accommodation

Conference registration will not include accommodation, but we will circulate details of convenient accommodation, with the Eventbrite link.

Further details

We will post updates on the following platforms

Bluesky: @ipanalysis

Email list: ipaqualitative@groups.io

Blogger: http://astonphar.blogspot.com/

Padlet: https://padlet.com/juliekane3/phar-uvbc6o5uoyifbftm

Enquiries

Please email phar-aston@outlook.com

We look forward to hearing from you.

Best,

PHaR and Birmingham Network for Phenomenology and Mental Health

Becky Millar is a Lecturer in Philosophy at Cardiff University. Their research lies primarily in philosophy of mind and philosophy of cognitive science, drawing on phenomenology and 4E approaches to cognition. They focus particularly on emotion, perception, and interpersonal experience, and much of their work examines challenging and disruptive emotional experiences. They are currently especially interested in marginalised forms of grief.

Jason Arday is Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education and a Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge. 

Previously, Jason was Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Glasgow in the School of Education, College of Social Sciences. Professor Arday has also held the position of Associate Professor in Sociology at Durham University in the Department of Sociology and Deputy Executive Dean for People and Culture in the Faculty of Social Science and Health. 

Jason is a Patron of the Adult Literacy Trust (ALT) and Get Further. He was formerly a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK’s leading Race Equality Thinktank for 11 years. He is a Trustee of the British Sociological Association (BSA). Jason sits on the NHS Race and Health Observatory Academic Reference Group and the ITV Cultural Advisory Council. 

The Exchange is in the city centre, opposite the Library. If you need any tips/advice finding accommodation in Birmingham, please let us know what you are looking for, and we will try to point you in the right direction.

23 September - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618) - Ida Strobach presenting on Relationship between hospice volunteers and dying patients.

7 October - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618)

21 October - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618)

4 November - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618)

18 November - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618)

2 December - 13:00 - 14:30 (hybrid - MB618)

16 December (in person) – lunch tbc