Robyn Thomas
Robyn Thomas is our resident ethnographer. Her own experience of psychosis and forced hospitalisation has led her to research alternative, compassionate approaches to mental health care.
Areas of interest
- Ethnography
- Reimagining Mental Health care
- Film making
- Mad Studies
Robyn Thomas is an ethnographer and a PhD candidate in anthropology at the University of Edinburgh. Her own experience of psychosis and forced hospitalisation has led her to research alternative, compassionate approaches to mental health care. She’s also interested in how people find meaning and growth from intense states, and her work on growth after psychosis has been published in Cambridge University Press and Mad In America.
Robyn is keen to explore alternatives to forced psychiatric treatment, social determinants of distress, and therapeutic communities. She received her MSc in Global Mental Health in 2020 at the University of Edinburgh (with distinction).
Before entering academia, Robyn’s background was in documentary filmmaking and she has collaborated on and directed award-winning films.
