Researcher of the Month, January 2025: Hannah Waite

Tell us a little about your research journey – how did you get to where you are right now?
While doing my MA in Psychology at the University of Aberdeen, I undertook additional courses in Christian Theology and began to become increasingly interested in the intersection of psychology and theology, specifically severe mental health challenges and practical theology.
During my undergraduate degree already, I conducted a final year research project on resilience, well-being, and religiosity. Through this small study my interest in this area grew and I joined a multi-disciplinary course called Spirituality, Health and Healing, which examined issues of health and healing within various contexts. This course was the catalyst for my change of direction: from a dream as a clinical psychologist, to becoming a researcher and theologian.
My PhD research, also at the University of Aberdeen, explored the lived experience of stigma in Christians with bipolar disorder, and is due to be published later this year with SCM Press. From my PhD, I moved to Theos Think Tank, where I worked as a science and religion researcher producing briefing papers, reports, blogs, and an interactive quiz – take a look at ‘Playing God’: Science, Religion and the Future of Humanity (SPCK, 2024). I have another forthcoming book on this topic, ‘The Landscapes of Science and Religion’: What are we disagreeing about? (OUP, 2025). Since leaving Theos, I have worked as postdoctoral research associate for ECLAS (Equipping Christian Leadership in an Age of Science) and more recently as an honorary researcher at the University of Aberdeen and a Psychology and Theology Cross Training Fellow at the University of Birmingham.
What are you currently, or about to start, working on?
In September 2024 I started working on a three-year BA Post-Doc project exploring how Christians who experience psychosis and/or mania navigate and understand the overlap of their mental health challenges and their religious experience. Often, society and faith communities focus on third-person views – medical evidence, clinical perspectives, empiricism – while sidelining the personal stories and views of those who live with these conditions. Simply, when people who have a mental illness have a religious experience, this is seen as either a symptom of their diagnosis or as a genuine religious encounter, rarely both. This can leave individuals feeling alienated, marginalised, and misunderstood. My work challenges this either-or thinking. It highlights first-person accounts and promotes a ‘both/and’ approach that recognises the complexity of such experiences, while also embracing and exploring the overlap between them. By bridging medical, theological, and personal spiritual interpretations, this research seeks to foster a deeper understanding of religious experience in the context of severe mental health challenges. It is my hope that the research will be able to provide a more compassionate, supportive, and inclusive framework for navigating these profound and often misunderstood experiences.
In what way(s) do you feel your research examines the role of religion in public life and the relationship between the two?
My research examines the role of religion in public life and its broader societal dynamics by addressing the intersection of theology, mental health and lived religious experiences. Specifically, my work challenges the stigmatisation of mental health challenges within faith communities and society, particularly by amplifying the marginalised voices of Christians with severe mental health challenges and taking their lived experiences seriously.
The primary goal of my research has always been driven by two primary questions: 1) how should Christians love and care for each other during difficulty and uncertainty, especially when this comes to the likes of severe mental health challenges and disability? and 2) How can we practise the radical sense of belonging and hospitality witnessed in the gospels? So far, my research journey has highlighted the complexity of living as a Christian with severe mental health challenges and has focused on integrating biological, medical, theological, and spiritual dimensions in a nuanced ‘both/and’ approach to advocate for a more compassionate and nuanced form of understanding mental health within faith contexts.
My research fosters dialogue between mental health professionals, clinicians, faith communities and the public, equipping practitioners and religious leaders (including lay ministry) to engage with individuals navigating the intersection of mental health, religious identity, and belief. I hope to contribute to public life by reshaping how religious experiences may be understood within the context of severe mental health challenges, and hopefully, by providing practical advice and action points on how to care for those with such diagnoses and incorporating them back into a space of belonging in their faith communities. I believe that amplifying the voices of the voiceless, giving space for those who are often ignored and isolated, allows us to think more concretely about how to create spaces of belonging, inclusivity, and holistic well-being, not only in faith communities but also within the public sphere. My research seeks to highlight how faith communities can become transformative spaces of support and belonging for such individuals.