If you want to study with us, partner with us or learn more about our research and initiatives, please get in touch with the team.
Deakin Diverging Minds Research Group
Exploring diverging minds through lived experience, from philosophy to clinical practice
How our research turns lived experience into better support
The Deakin Diverging Minds Research Group focuses on the lived experiences of people with neurodivergence and psychopathology. We use qualitative and quantitative methods, informed by phenomenological philosophy, to contribute to both nosology, prediction (via prodromal experiential changes) and long-term treatment.
Our research concentrates on the conceptual clarification of experience in a variety of co-occurring conditions and transdiagnostic symptoms in the mind and body. Alongside our focus on lived experience, we contextualise our findings within the broader social determinants of health and wellbeing, including how technology and AI shape experiences of temporality, embodiment, affect and beyond.
Our research areas
We investigate four interconnected research areas to better understand lived experience and its implications for theory, policy and practice.
Temporal experiences in neurodivergence and psychopathology
Temporal experience can shift, stretch, or disintegrate across a range of experiences. Although often overlooked, these changes have important implications for how we support individuals and develop targeted interventions.
Embodiment and somato-sensory experiences and urges
Experiences of embodiment can vary widely, encompassing a range of bodily urges, somatosensory experiences, habits, behaviours and compulsions. We re-examine these embodied experiences beyond existing diagnostic categories.
Intersubjectivity and parasociality
Other people play a crucial role in our mental health and wellbeing. While parasocial relationships have long existed, technology and AI, including chatbots, are creating new forms of connection that we examine.
Policy and ethics
Good policy must be grounded in the lived realities of individuals, not just metrics of efficiency, output, or risk. For example, what might phenomenologically informed consent look like? Our research considers how we can we help people prepare for interventions that may radically alter their subjective experience, such as artificial hearts or psychedelic therapies.
Study with us
Curious about the intersections of neurodivergence, psychopathology, technology and wellbeing? When you study a research degree at Deakin, you’ll work alongside renowned experts shaping better mental health support.
Our researchers
Our researchers are leading new approaches to understanding lived experience, mental health and wellbeing.
Professor Jack Reynolds is the lead of the Deakin Diverging Minds Research Group, a fellow of the Australian Academy of Humanities and a member of the Australian Research Council College of Experts. His interdisciplinary research addresses the philosophical and empirical issues concerning embodiment, temporality and social cognition – including their variability.
Featured projects
Our projects explore the complexities of lived experience across mental health, embodiment, technology and society. By combining phenomenological inquiry with empirical research, we generate insights that inform theory, practice and policy.
The urge to tic
People with Tourette Syndrome commonly experience unpleasant sensory phenomena, known as premonitory urges, before they tic. We explore how young people experience tics and premonitory urges and compare this to brain activity measured using Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI).
Digital death and immortality
In the 21st century, death has an unavoidable digital dimension, including in the “digital remains” that we leave behind when we die. This project aims to develop a philosophically informed ethical approach for managing the ‘digital remains’ of internet users who have passed away.
Contact us
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