Feeling Better

Chowen Lecture Theatre
Brighton & Sussex Medical School
94 N – S Road
Brighton BN1 9PX

Tickets: £5/£3
Book now

What makes us feel better? Join us for a conversation with patients, health professionals, researchers, ethicists and artists to consider how beliefs, expectations and relationships can have a radical impact on our health and wellbeing. Hear from doctors at innovative health centres who are bringing the arts and complementary therapies to their communities, and researchers at the forefront of implementing practices and ideas from clinical psychology and philosophy.

Part of The Power of Placebo – a national programme of events to accompany our new performance, Placebo.

Speakers include:

Lisa Quadt is a post-doctoral research fellow working at the Psychiatry Department of the Brighton & Sussex Medical School. She completed her PhD in Philosophy of Mind in 2017, focussing on theories about social understanding from the perspectives of philosophy, neuroscience, psychology and cognitive science. Fascinated by the empirical side of her studies, Lisa decided to change fields and moved to Brighton for her current position. She now works on a clinical trial that tests a new therapy against anxiety in autistic individuals, which is based on increasing awareness of one’s own heartbeat. Lisa is interested in how mind, body and brain work together, especially in mental health conditions.

Dr. Laura Marshall-Andrews is a GP at the Brighton Health and Wellbeing Centre, and Co-Founder of Robinhood Health, an organisation which hopes to promote a different type of Primary Care, focused on integration, community, self-care and sustainability. She believes passionately that excellent primary care is the cornerstone of providing high quality health care for communities. Laura has a strong interest in Narrative Medicine and Integrated Medicine, and has taught medical students at Brighton and Sussex Medical Schools.

Bobbie Farsides is Professor of Clinical and Biomedical Bioethics at Brighton and Sussex Medical School. She has been teaching and researching in the field of clinical biomedical ethics for over twenty years. Her research is primarily focused on ethical issues relating to healthcare, especially ante-natal screening and testing, reproductive technologies, palliative care and issues around death and dying. She is particularly interested in the experience of health care professionals operating in ethically contested fields of healthcare and has conducted research in areas as diverse as stem cell research, fetal medicine and organ transplantation. Prof. Farsides also has an interest in the application of biomedical ethics theory to the development of public policy.

Sue MacLaine is a writer and director whose work is radical, political, personal and poetic. Sue began her theatre career in 1983 after leaving the New College of Speech & Drama and joined Feminist theatre collective Scarlet Harlets in 1984 and made five works with them before leaving to join Kenneth Branagh’s Renaissance Theatre Company. She returned to theatre-making in 1999 after having qualified as a British Sign Language/English interpreter at Bristol University. She offers mentoring, dramaturgical support and direction to others with a particular interest in working with choreographers & dancers, and continues to specialise in performance interpreting.

Book tickets to see Placebo at Attenborough Centre for the Creative Arts on 16-17 October.