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Our brain is an amazing thing. But its not without its challenges. Tonight our two PHD candidates will be telling you more about their research. We'll learn more about how Autism and friendships are vital in tackling poor mental health and that our brain and psychological responses when we're dealing with perceived illness can be make or break.
Autism and the Value of Autistic Friendship
Monique Botha
(PHD Student)
We will be shining a light on poor mental health in the autistic community, and how we might be able to combat it through autistic community connectedness. We'll will walk people through a series of studies that show that poor mental health is not inevitable if you are autistic, and how autistic friendships can provide a life-saving source of resilience against discrimination.
How your brain creates disease/illness
Laura Carter
(PHD Student)
This talk presents the role of psychology in the experience of disease, highlighting how our thoughts, feelings, beliefs and environment shape our own personal experience of symptoms of disease. I would emphasise the phenomena of medically unexplained symptoms, symptoms that occur in the absence of biological dysfunction and how we often overestimate our ability to recognise and understand symptoms of disease.
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