‘Thinking Differently about Healing and Mental Health’

In this, the last session of our 2023 series of Zoom seminars on spiritual health in an age of anxiety, John Swinton asks what the church might bring to the area of mental health that is not already available elsewhere.

John Swinton is Professor in Practical Theology and Pastoral Care, and Chair in Divinity and Religious Studies at the University of Aberdeen. For more than a decade John worked as a registered mental health nurse, then as a hospital and community mental health Chaplain. In 2004, he founded the University of Aberdeen’s Centre for Spirituality, Health and Disability. He has published widely and is the author of a number of monographs, including his new book Finding Jesus in the Storm: The Spiritual Lives of People with Mental Health Challenges (2020), which won the Aldersgate book prize for interdisciplinary theological research. His book Dementia: Living in the Memories of God (2012) won the Archbishop of Canterbury’s Ramsey Prize for excellence in theological writing.

Here is another opportunity to listen to John’s talk and the ensuing discussion: