In this talk, Dr Christopher Lloyd will present qualitative data to explore perceptions of self-harm in the context of Christian faith communities.
Mental illness within Christian communities may be stigmatised, with many attributing it exclusively to demonic possession, lack of faith, personal sin, or other negative spiritual influences.
In this talk, Christopher will present qualitative data which used the novel story completion task to explore perceptions of self-harm in the context of Christian faith communities. In doing so, Christopher will highlight the need for psychology to engage directly and proactively with religious and spiritual belief systems.
Methodologically, the talk aims to demonstrate the utility of a seldom-used tool within psychology – the story completion task – for accessing sociocultural discourses and wider representations surrounding stigmatised topics or populations.
Open to all Social Sciences staff and students.
Location
Round the Green Table in Psychology, 6th Floor – Copland Building, New Cavendish Street.
Event speaker
Dr Christopher Lloyd
Dr Christopher Lloyd joined the University of Westminster as a Lecturer in Psychology in September 2023. He originally trained as a Counselling Psychologist. He is an experienced qualitative researcher and has approaching 30 peer-reviewed publications. He has a particular interest in more novel forms of qualitative data collections methods, such as story completion. He is especially interested in the transformative power of qualitative research to challenge stigma and reduce mental health inequalities.
His research expertise explores the intersection between religious understandings of mental distress, predominantly (but not exclusively) amongst Christians and how these might impact individual and collective wellbeing. A principal aim of his work is to understand, interrogate, and dismantle religious mental health stigma so that people who experience mental illness can be better supported. He has published expertise in a wide array of analytic methods, including reflexive thematic analysis, discourse analysis and interpretative phenomenological analysis.
He is an Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society (AFBPsS), as well as a Chartered Psychologist (CPsychol). He holds Fellowship status (FHEA) with the Higher Education Academy.
