Professor Neil Armstrong

Neil is a lecturer in anthropology. He uses anthropological methods contribute to change in mental healthcare.  

Collaboration and coproduction are key to Neil’s work. His book, Collaborative Ethnographic Working in Mental Healthcare: Knowledge Power and Hope in an Age of Bureaucratic Accountability uses a mix of conventional ethnography, coproduced ethnography (with service users and service providers) and autoethnography, presented alongside medical notes and photographs, to argue that much of what we want mental healthcare to be stands in tension with how it is currently organised. New forms of care might require new ways of organising. Neil discusses the book and its practical implications with psychologist Dr Nicola Byrom at the 2024 Royal Institute of Philosophy London Lectures.  

Neil is involved in long-term work on student mental health, combining ethnographic data and theory to better understand and respond to experiences of distress. He is interested in institutional cultures (and how anthropological research, education and training might lead to positive culture change), the effects of labels and measurement, and relational and religious approaches to distress and recovery. 

He is a Research Fellow at Re:Create Psychiatry, a Mental Fight Club project that works to facilitate productive dialogue between people who experience mental health problems. With colleagues at the University of the Arts London, and Pan Arts, he is developing rituals that promote social connection and reduce loneliness through acts of public silliness.  

Neil’s research is published in anthropology journals but also in medical publications (he has co-edited a special edition journal History of Psychiatry), and psychology journals as well as service user magazines such as Asylum. 

Armstrong, N. (2023) Collaborative Ethnographic Working in Mental Health: Knowledge, Power and Hope in an Age of Bureaucratic Accountability. London: Routledge.   

Armstrong N, and Hall J. ed. (2023) ‘The processes and context of innovation in mental healthcare: Oxfordshire as a case study.’ History of Psychiatry special issue 34.1: 1-108 

Journal articles

Armstrong N, Beswick L, & Vega M.O. (2023) ‘Is it Still Ok to be Ok? Mental Health Labels as a Campus Technology.’ Culture, Medicine & Psychiatry 47, 982–1004.  

Armstrong N and Byrom, N.C. (2023) ‘The Impact of Mitigating Circumstances Procedures: Student Satisfaction, Wellbeing and Structural Compassion on the Campus.’ Education Sciences 13, no. 12: 1230.  

Leach J, Agulnik P, Armstrong N. (2023) ‘The development of a creative work rehabilitation organisation.’ History of Psychiatry 34(1):48-63.  

Hall J, Armstrong N, Agulnik P, et al. (2023) ‘The processes and context of innovation in mental healthcare: Oxfordshire as a case study.’ History of Psychiatry 34(1):3-16. 

Armstrong N and Agulnik P. (2023) ‘Happenstance and regulatory culture: the evolution of innovative community mental health services in Oxfordshire in the late twentieth century.’ History of Psychiatry 34(1):64-77.  

Millard D, Agulnik P, Armstrong N, et al. (2023) ‘Innovation in mental health care: Bertram Mandelbrote, the Phoenix Unit and the therapeutic community approach.’ History of Psychiatry 34(1):17-33.  

Armstrong N and Pratt-Boyden K. (2021) ‘Silver linings: how mental health activists can help us navigate wicked problems.’ BJPsych Bulletin 45(4):227-230.  

Armstrong N and Agulnik P. (2020) ‘“I was at the right place at the right time”: the neglected role of happenstance in the lives of people and institutions.’ HAU: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 10.3: 890-905. 

Armstrong N. (2018) ‘What leads to innovation in mental healthcare? Reflections on clinical expertise in a bureaucratic age.’ BJPsych Bulletin 42(5):184-187. 

Armstrong N. (2017). ‘Knowing More by Knowing Less? A Reading of Give Me Everything You Have. On Being Stalked by James Lasdun.’ Journal of Medical Humanities 38, 287–302.  

Armstrong N, Price J & Geddes J. (2015). ‘Serious but not solemn: Rebalancing the assessment of risks and benefits of patient recruitment materials.’ Research Ethics 11(2), 98-107. 

Armstrong N. (2012) ‘What can we learn from service user memoirs? Information and service user experience.’ The Psychiatrist 36(9):341-344.   

Policy publications 

Armstrong N and Bayar L. (2022) ‘Re:Create Psychiatry: An Introduction.’ A document for funders of Mental Fight Club.  

Dodd, A et al. (2024) ‘Engagement Toolkit.’ A guidance document for co-producing research with students. 

Opinion/media/blogs 

Jones, R and Armstrong N (2024) Power and Powerlessness: A staff member’s limits. Asylum 31.3 

• Mental healthcare services 
• Student mental health 
• Ethnographic methods 
• Religion and mental health 
• Lived experience 
• Interdisciplinary collaboration