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Blease

Dr Charlotte Blease BSc (London) MA PhD (QUB)

Teaching Assistant

Contact Details  

Room 18.102

Email: c.blease@qub.ac.uk

Office Hours: 2.15-3.15pm Tuesdays and Thursdays 

Teaching
I am a teaching assistant at Queen’s University, Belfast. This year (2012-13) I will be convening on the Philosophy of Science module.  I have also been invited to give lectures to on the placebo effect to students in the Medical Faculty at QUB.  I have also lectured on Mind and Nature and Epistemology. I have tutored on Moral Theories, Philosophy of Mind and Philosophy of Religion modules.  I have a wide range of experience in promoting public engagement with philosophy, including the history and philosophy of psychiatry.

My main philosophical interests lie in philosophy of mind, philosophy of science and medical ethics. However, my academic bent is strongly interdisciplinary and my chief research area is cognitive science. I completed by PhD – entitled “Paul Churchland’s Arguments for Eliminative Materialism” – in 2008, under the supervision of Professors Alan Weir and Cynthia Macdonald. My current research interests are in the placebo effect (conceptual and ethical issues) and in philosophy and cognitive science of psychiatry (including the relationship between lay concepts of mental disorders and scientific classifications).

Publications

  • Electroconvulsive therapy: the of informed consent and ‘placebo literacy’. Journal of Medical Ethics 2012; 10.1136/medethics-2012-101201
  • March 2012. Mental Health Illiteracy: Perceiving Depression as a Disorder. Review of General Psychology 16 (1): 59-69 (‘International 1’ on ERIH psychology journal ranking)..
  • 2012. Dismissing Depression: Folk Theorising and Stigmatization. Health, Illness and Disease: Philosophical Essays, Chapter 10: pp. 175-188. Edited by Rachel Cooper and Havi Carel, Acumen.
  • 2011. The Principle of Parity: The Placebo and Physician Communication. Journal of Medical Ethics 38(4):199-203. (‘International 2’ on ERIH philosophy journal ranking). Cited by 1 (June 2012).
  • 2011. Eliminative Materialism in M. Bruce and S. Barbone (eds.) Just the Arguments: 100 of the Most Important Arguments in Western Philosophy, Blackwell-Wiley.
  • 2011. Deception as Treatment: The Case of Depression. Journal of Medical Ethics, 37(1): 13-16 (‘International 2’ on ERIH philosophy journal ranking). This article will be reprinted in Mental Healthcare: An Ethics Reader (MIT Press 2013) edited by A. Caplan, D. Sisti, and H. Rimon-Greenspan. Cited by 2 (June 2012). 
  • 2010. Scientific Progress and the Prospects for Culture-Bound Syndromes. Studies in the  History and Philosophy of Science Part C, 41: 333-339  (‘International 1’ on ERIH philosophy journal ranking). Cited by 1 (June 2012).

 

My papers can be found at:
http://qub.academia.edu/CharlotteBlease

Outreach, Media & Impact

Philosophy for Children

  • In March 2011 I was awarded a ‘SAPERE Level 1 Certificate’ in teaching philosophy and critical thinking to primary school children.
  • Since March 2011 I have been working with the ‘P4C’ [‘Philosophy for Children]’ educational charity SAPERE to help initiate the teaching of philosophy for children across Northern Ireland. I have made various contacts in education and media outlets to promote this goal.

 

Philosophy in Secondary Schools

  • 8 & 10 Nov. 2011: In my capacity as philosophy associate for the Northern Ireland exam board ‘CCEA’, I ran two day-long sessions on teaching aspects of the Religious Studies and Philosophy of Religion GCSE, AS & A2 Level to school teachers in Northern Ireland.
  • 2010-2012: I am an eight times recipient of the Royal Institute of Philosophy’s Jacobsen Trust Award for the teaching of an introductory ten-week philosophy course to 16-17 year olds in schools. In this academic year, I have secured a quarter of the Royal Institute’s Jacobsen budget for Northern Irish schools. In autumn 2011, I have been awarded to teach ten week courses (for two hours per week) in five schools: Victoria College, Belfast; Bloomfield Collegiate, Belfast; Dominican College, Belfast; Sullivan Upper, Holywood; and Friends’ School, Lisburn. In 2010, I successfully ran this course in three schools: Victoria College, Belfast; Wellington College, Belfast; and Friends’ School, Lisburn.

 

Teaching Adult Learners

  • May – June 2011: I taught two (5 x 2 hour) courses as part of Queen’s University’s Open Learning programme: “Introduction to Philosophy” (28 students) and “What is Psychiatry?” (16 students).

 

Conference

  • 21st September 2011: Principal organiser of a one-day introduction to philosophy conference for school pupils (aged 16-18) to be hosted by Queen’s University, Belfast. This conference was funded by the Royal Institute of Philosophy.

 

Media

  • 11th December 2011: Contributor to Radio Ulster current affairs show “Seven Days” for philosophical slant on the week’s current affairs.
  • November 2011: Interviewed by Joe Humphreys of the Irish Times about my experiences of teaching philosophy to schoolchildren.
  • 10th November 2011: Invitation to talk about my research on the placebo effect and medical paternalism at ‘Bright Club’, a Queen’s University public engagement initiative.
  • 20th September 2011: Arts Extra BBC Radio Ulster: 10 minute interview (6.45pm) on the nature of philosophy ahead of a one-day introductory philosophy conference in Queen’s University, Belfast for the station’s flagship, weekday arts programme.
  • 20th July 2011: I write a regular (termly) two page-long column on the philosophy of education by the General Teaching Council of Northern Ireland for their quarterly magazine “Termtalk”. This magazine is distributed to all 27,000 teachers in Northern Ireland.
  • 19th July 2011: Arts Extra BBC Radio Ulster: 15 minute interview (6.45pm) on the nature of philosophy and why philosophy should be introduced more widely into the Northern Irish school curriculum for the station’s flagship, weekday arts programme.
  • 19th July 2011: The Irish News. I wrote a feature article entitled ‘Empowering Young Minds of the Future’ – making the case for introducing philosophy into schools – even for the youngest pupils.
  • 7th March 2011: Following publication of my paper ‘Deception as Treatment’ in the Journal of Medical Ethics, I was interviewed by a researcher for the World Tonight, Radio 4 on the ethics of placebo use.

 

Selected Presentations

  • (Forthcoming) 24th August 2012: ‘Electroconvulsive Therapy as “Placebo”’. Poster presentation at ‘Beyond the Placebo: Biomedical, Clinical and Philosophical Aspects of the Placebo Effect’. Centre for Biomedical Ethics, University of Zurich.
  • (Forthcoming) 29th June 2012: ‘Informed Consent, the Placebo Effect and Psychotherapy’. Invited presentation funded by Southampton University to attend the Complementary and Alternative Medicine Research Group at Southampton University.
  • 24th March 2012: ‘Informed Consent, the Placebo Effect and Psychotherapy’. ‘New Perspectives on Medical Paternalism’, Hamburg University. Funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research.
  • 17th February 2012: ‘Informed Consent  and Culture-Bound Syndromes: The Case of Neurasthenia and Depression”. Philosophy of Psychiatry Work in Progress Workshop. University of Lancaster.
  • 2nd September 2010: ‘Mental Health Illiteracy? The Prospects for Public Education of Depression’. Concepts of Health and Illness. University of the West of England, Bristol.