16 October 2025, 4pm
Simon Building, Room 2.57 [maps and travel]

The Future of the Autism Concept

Discussants:

• Dr Bonnie Evans, Lecturer in History of Medicine, Centre for the History of Science, Technology & Medicine, University of Manchester
• Professor Jonathan Green, Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, University of Manchester

Chair: Professor Carsten Timmermann, CHSTM

Cost: No charge, please come a few minutes early if you want tea or coffee.

Abstract:

In 1994 the psychiatrist and historian of psychiatry Germán Elías Berríos opened a journal article on the historiography of mental illness with the following provocative paragraph:

“The history of psychiatry is ailing from ’migrant worker-disease’. Philosophers, sociologists, social anthropologists, professional historians and others have discovered that psychiatry is the ideal testing ground for their pet theories. Just like the atomic scientists of old, the new-age ones hit and run, leaving much conceptual fall-out behind. They rarely stop to ask what might happen to patients and psychiatric services alike if, through some crevice in the soil, the fall-out feeds some proverbial political monster”

Berrios suggested that the solution to the predicament was to find ways to work together, clinicians and historians. Inspired by Berrios’ provocation, we would like to invite you to join us for the first of a series of seminars where distinguished clinicians and academics working in disciplines connected with mental health meet with historians, sociologists, anthropologists and other interested scholars in the humanities and social sciences, to create dialogue and build links.

The seminars will, in the first instance, be face to face whilst the format is developed. Invited speakers will provide background reading in preparation for the event and then present their arguments for around 20 minutes, followed by ample time for discussion. 

Places are limited so to attend email Jane Whittaker, PhD student at CHSTM, jane.whittaker-4@postgrad.manchester.ac.uk, to secure a spot. Tea/ coffee and biscuits will be available (we have to make our own), and some of us will be going for a drink afterwards.

Discussant Biographies:

Dr Bonnie Evans

Dr Evans is Lecturer in the History of Medicine and Health at the Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine, Manchester University.

Her work explores the global history of child psychology, developmental neuroscience, and the making of the modern self. She has an MSc in Economic and Social History (History of Medicine) from Oxford University and a PhD from the Department of History and Philosophy of Science, Cambridge University.  

She co-founded the interdisciplinary Health and Welfare Research Group at CRASSH, Cambridge. She then held a fellowship at King’s College, London’s Centre for Medical Humanities followed by a Wellcome Trust Research Fellowship at Queen Mary University, where she also collaborated on a project on cinema and psychology.

She has researched and lectured the international history of child sciences, psychology and eugenics. Her first monograph, The Metamorphosis of Autism was published by Manchester University Press in 2017. She is currently writing a new book with Reaktion Press.

In addition to her academic work, she has also worked as a policy and media advisor and has written for publications such as Aeon. She has spoken at the UK Department for Education and has advised at the Institute for Public Policy Research. She has consulted for the BBC and other media outlets and has appeared on BBC television.

View Bonnie’s research profile

Recommended reading prior to the seminar:  

Evans, Bonnie. “Introduction: Perceiving, describing and modelling child development”. The metamorphosis of autism: A history of child development in Britain, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2017, pp. 1-30. https://doi.org/10.7765/9781526110015.00006 

Professor Jonathan Green 

Jonathan Green is Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at University of Manchester and Hon Consultant Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist at the Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital. He studied medicine at Cambridge, Paediatrics in London and Psychiatry in Oxford before establishing clinical and research groups in Manchester. He developed and tested early parent-mediated interventions for autistic development for both pre-school diagnosed children (PACT) and in the pre-diagnostic stage (iBASIS); and built on this evidence to advocate an early developmental pathway approach to autistic care that is now being applied in UK and internationally.

Recently, he has undertaken participatory work with the autistic community, including a novel phenomenology project (Murray et al 2023) and the broad review of autistic phenomenology that forms the basis to this talk (Green and Shaughnessy 2023).

Jonathan sat on the most recent NICE development group for autism. He is a Senior Investigator in NIHR, Fellow of the UK Academy of Medical Sciences, and UK Global Senior Leader for autism for the International Society of Autism Research (INSAR).

View Jonathans’ research profile

Recommended reading prior to the seminar:

Green, J.G. & Shaughnessy, N. ‘HYPOTHESIS AND THEORY article Section of Psychopathology: Autistic phenomenology: past, present, and potential future. Front. Psychol., 27 December 2023. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287209

References:

Green, J & Shaughnessy, N 2023, ‘Autistic phenomenology: past, present, and potential future’, Front Psychol, vol. 14. https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2023.1287209/full [frontiersin.org]

Murray, D, Milton, D, Green, J & Bervoets, J 2022, ‘The Human Spectrum: A Phenomenological Enquiry within Neurodiversity’, Psychopathology. https://doi.org/10.1159/000526213 [doi.org]

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