Shauna Winram is a PhD candidate in the School of Philosophy, College of Arts and Social Sciences, Australian National University. Shauna is a lived experience researcher, having had three psychotic episodes in her twenties. Her PhD is entitled Consciousness and the Phenomenology of Psychosis. As part of Shauna’s research, she is conducting an online survey as well as interviewing participants who have experienced psychosis.

Shauna’s approach to understanding psychosis differs from the dominant biomedical model. She hopes that by exploring the ways that consciousness can vary, we can learn more about the type of experiences people have when they are psychotic. Her goal is to take the first-person experience of psychosis seriously and to determine how our philosophical and scientific understanding of consciousness can shed light on this experience and, in turn, how our understanding of psychosis can shed light on consciousness.

“What we colloquially call 'madness' refers to quintessentially human experiences. If we are to understand disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, then it is important to listen to the experiences of those who have been ‘mad’. But beyond this, a rich understanding of humanity requires that we listen - and listen carefully - to what those who have experienced madness have to say.” Shauna Winram