In July 2025, PhD candidates from the University of Aberdeen Health Psychology Group attended the 14th conference of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology (ISCHP), hosted for the first time in Ireland at the University of Galway. With the theme “Contesting Borders,” the conference brought together critical health psychologists and allied scholars to explore how social, political, and cultural forces shape health and illness, especially for those most marginalised. The event foregrounded issues of colonial legacy, health inequality, and epistemic justice in a time of growing global unrest, climate crisis, and widening social divides.
Keynote speakers included Dr Parul Bansal (India), Prof Catriona Macleod (South Africa), Dr Marco Gemignani (Spain), and Prof Peter Hegarty (UK), all of whom offered powerful insights into how health psychology must engage with power, place, and pluralism.
Representing the University of Aberdeen, Abbie Stephen, PhD candidate, presented her research on using photo-elicitation to explore lived experiences of food insecurity and dietary inequality. David Field, PhD candidate in applied health science, delivered findings from his IPA study on how Irish gay men conceptualise sexual health risk, as part of a symposium titled “Challenging the Medicalisation of Sexual Health.”
A particular highlight was meeting Professor Virginia Braun from the University of Auckland. Virginia is perhaps best known for her long-standing collaboration with Professor Victoria Clarke on qualitative methods and thematic analysis. Their 2006 paper, “Using thematic analysis in psychology”, has been cited over 240,000 times and was named by Nature as the 9th most cited research paper of all time. We were delighted to meet her in person and capture the moment in a photo, a great opportunity to connect with someone whose work has shaped the field so profoundly.
