PhD Courses in Denmark

Course description

‘Lived experience’ is currently either a buzz-word or a contentious theme in various fields of psycho-social intervention. In psychiatry, social work, addiction treatment, crime prevention and exit, etc., people with lived experience are, more or less formally, invited or hired to contribute. The same is true of research into these fields. This PhD course will engage students in academic discussions that help us problematize, analyze, and cultivate this practice. Lived experience involves meetings and tensions between different forms of knowledge and its legitimacy (e.g. objectivity, professionalism vs. authenticity, empathy); ongoing problematization and redefinition of the aims and objects of interventions; reconfiguration of the positions and the identities suggested by these forms and objects; transformations and/or restorations of stigma; ... and much more.
We will discuss changes, possibilities and dilemmas of the different ways of participating / positioning in research and interventions. This includes discussions of potential collective, transformative agency of ‘us’ / ‘we’ as joint ventures working across research and interventions.
To understand this, we take up broadly psycho-social approaches that address practices and identities as emergent socio-material, collective and cultural configurations. We use these to analyze concrete examples of lived experience, and we invite lived experience itself as part of our academic work. The course teachers have all worked with and written about lived experience in different fields of intervention, and will invite students to participate in the much needed cultivation of a critical but contributive academic reflection of it.

The course is in two parts. The first part is about general issues relevant to lived experience. The second part zooms in on the currently widespread use of aesthetics as a genre of self-representation, often used as a way of empowering marginalized people. We reflect on how these ‘alternative genres’ may challenge and/or supplement the scientific, professional, journalistic, confessional (etc.) forms of knowledge and interventions, and how they might contribute to transformations of research and intervention practices.

Aim

The aim of the course is to introduce students to theory, methodologies and ethics relevant to psycho-social interventions and lived experience.

The students will be introduced to

• Social, psychological and practice theories and methodologies relevant for analysis of psycho-social interventions and the embodied experiences of stress, learning, and care.
• Critical discussions of non-mainstream ways of doing research with people with lived experiences, reflections of possibilities, dilemmas in collaborations and multiple researcher positioning
• Aesthetic theories and practices relevant to understanding and expressing lived experience
• How to analyze ethical dilemmas, ethics of care when researching with people with lived experiences, who are often participating from marginal positions

Preparation and literature 

First part - Courses days January 

• Cromby, J., Harper, D. & Reavey, P. (2013) Psychology, Mental Health & Distress. Basingstoke: Palgrave Press.
• Haug, F., et al. 1987. Female Sexualization: A Collective Work of Memory. London: Verso. Chapter 1.
• Nissen, M. (2023). Rearticulating Motives. Springer, pp. 25-29, 201-231
• Hacking, I. (2007). Kinds of People: Moving Targets. Proceedings of the British Academy 151, 185-318
• Skovlund, H., Mørck, L. L. & Celosse-Andersen, M. (2023): The art of not being neutral in qualitative research, Qualitative Research in Psychology, DOI: 10.1080/14780887.2023.2223529

Second part - Courses days August

•  Bank, M., de Neergaard, S. & Nissen, M. (2022). Aesthetic motifs and the materiality of motives. Theory & Psychology 32(6), 848–867.
• Mørck, L. L., and M. C. Celosse-Andersen. 2019. Mo(ve)ment-methodology: Identity formation moving beyond gang involvement. Annual Review of Critical Psychology 16:634–70. https://thediscourseunit.files.wordpress.com/2019/12/0634.pdf
• Reavey, P. (2020) A Handbook of Visual Methods in Psychology – Second Edition. London: Routledge.
• Rancière, J. (2009). The Emancipated Spectator. Verso, ch. 3
• Stetsenko, (2017). Transformative Activist Stance: Agency. The transformative mind. Chapter 7. Cambridge University Press
• Nissen, M. & Mørck, L.M. (2020). Situated Generalization with Prototypes – in Dialogical Teaching. In: C. Højholt & E. Schraube (Eds.) Subjectivity and Knowledge: Generalization in the Psychological Study of Everyday Life. Berlin: Springer Verlag, 195-220).

Target group/Participants

Doctoral students in the social sciences and humanities with a background and an interest in theoretically informed qualitative research

Language    
English

Form
The course will include

• Academic lectures and seminars by teachers
• Presentations by and dialogue with people with lived experience in psycho-social problems and interventions
• Supervised workshops in smaller groups discussing or analyzing small texts / empirical excerpts / presentations made by students (texts which can be used further in the PhD)
• The general ethos of the course is dialogical teaching, in which students’ projects and references will be given priority (as described in Nissen, M. & Mørck, L.M. (2020).

ECTS-credits
3 * 2 = 6

Lecturers

• Paula Reavey
• Line Lerche Mørck
• Martin Celosse-Andersen
• Jacqui Dillon
• Morten Nissen

Venue
Campus Emdrup

• 29 January 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a
• 30 January 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a
• 31 January 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a
• 20 August 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a
• 21 August 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a
• 22 August 2025: Emdrupvej 115B, 2400 København NV. Building D/7220, room D168a