FEATURED AUTHOR

Johanna Margaret Lynch

Senior Lecturer
The University of Queensland

Johanna Lynch is a family doctor with experience caring for adults who have survived childhood trauma and neglect. This clinical work and its rich literature has led her to question the current framing of mental health as separate from the body and life story. In returning to her generalist medical roots, she has identified a beautiful and simple (but not simplistic) approach to defining and practicing whole person care: Building Sense of Safety.

Subjects: Health and Social Care, Neuropsychology

Biography

Johanna is an Australian GP (family doctor) of more than 20 years’ experience who has spent the last 15 years developing innovative clinical approaches to those who have survived childhood trauma and neglect. This clinical work lead to her research focussing on the link between life experience and health. Johanna sees integration of diverse forms of knowledge as an everyday skill of the generalist. Her writing attends to the patterns that link us and help us to see and care for the whole person. She has intentionally walked the boundaries between biomedicine and the social sciences - fascinated by how the mind and body, spirit and community connect. These are central themes of her internationally acclaimed PhD researching whole person approaches to distress in primary care, her recent book, and her academic writing on generalist approaches to mental health and research.

Johanna is a senior lecturer and clinical supervisor, teaching whole person care, vulnerability in medicine, and mental health skills to medical students, GPs and mental health clinicians. She is President (and former Education Chair) of Australian Society for Psychological Medicine and advisor to BlueKnot Foundation a trauma recovery advocacy organisation. As a clinician she is passionate about generalist (transdisciplinary) approaches to the person that facilitate early diagnosis, innovation, and personalised care. As a researcher she is passionate about collaborative generosity that transcends disciplines in order to see the whole. As a writer she longs to communicate in a way that helps us remain curious and open to see the connections that make up the whole.

Education

Areas of Research / Professional Expertise

Websites

Books

Featured Title

Articles

Transdisciplinary Generalism: Naming the epistemology and philosophy of the generalist

Published: Apr 02, 2020 by Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice
Authors: Lynch, J.M., Dowrick, C.D, Meredith, P., McGregor, S.L.T., van Driel, M.
Subjects: Health and Social Care

Transdisciplinary research and generalist practice both face the task of integrating and discerning the value of knowledge across disciplinary and sectoral knowledge cultures. Transdisciplinarity and generalism also both offer philosophical and practical insights into the epistemology, ontology, axiology, and logic of seeing the ‘whole’. This paper offers a philosophically robust way to think about the prerequisite clinical and research skills of the generalist in any setting.

Biology and Experience Intertwined: trauma, neglect and physical health

Published: Nov 21, 2019 by Humanising Mental Health in Australia
Authors: Lynch, J.M., Kirkengen, A.L.
Subjects: Health and Social Care

Transdisciplinary research in the areas of trauma and stress, psychoneuroimmunology, affective neuroscience, attachment, and psychophysiology (and more) confirms that the physical body can no longer be considered separate from the mind. Instead the body is understood as a tangible embodiment of a life made up of subjective meaningful experiences. This chapter outlines the key understanding of how life story, emotions, sensations and experiences are encoded in the body, impacting health.

Beyond Symptoms: Defining primary care mental health clinical assessment priorities, content, and process

Published: Jan 01, 2012 by Social Science & Medicine
Authors: Lynch, J.M., Askew, D.A, Mitchell, G.K., Hegarty, K.L.
Subjects: Health and Social Care

The assessment of undifferentiated psychological distress is a daily aspect of primary care practice. Primary care practitioners’ underlying values influence the priorities, process and content of assessment. Currently there is a lack of definition of these values in primary care clinical mental health assessment. This paper presents the case for adopting the philosophical values and principles of holistic transdisciplinary generalism to influence practice worldwide.

Photos

News

New paper published : The Craft of Generalism: clinical skills and attitudes for whole person care

By: Johanna Margaret Lynch
Subjects: Education, Health and Social Care, Other, Psychology, Thinking & Reasoning

Very thankful to announce that this paper outlining the key clinical skills and attitudes of the generalist has been published! My co-athors are emminent international generalist clinicians and researchers. This paper is designed for all generalists to be encouraged about the sophistication of their work, and give clear guidelines for honing and teaching these skills an attitudes across the disciplines. Read on for the abstract.

Follow this link to read it: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34652051/

Craft of Generalism: clinical skills and attitudes for whole person care - Abstract
Rationale, aims and objectives: Generalists manage a broad range of biomedical and biographical knowledge as part of each clinical encounter, often in multiple encoun- ters over time. The sophistication of this broad integrative work is often misunder- stood by those schooled in reductionist or constructivist approaches to evidence. There is a need to describe the practical and philosophically robust ways that under- standing about the whole person is formed. In this paper we describe first principles of generalist approaches to knowledge formation in clinical practice. We name the Craft of Generalism.
Methods: The newly described methodology of Transdisciplinary Generalism is examined by skilled generalist clinicians and translated into skills and attitudes useful for everyday generalist person-centred practice and research.
Results: The Craft of Generalism defines the required scope, process, priorities, and knowledge management skills of all generalists seeking to care for the whole person. These principles are Whole Person Scope, Relational Process, Healing Orientation, and Integrative Wisdom. These skills and attitudes are required for whole person care. If any element of these first principles is left out, the resultant knowledge is incomplete and philosophically incoherent.
Conclusions: Naming the Craft of Generalism defines the generalist gaze and pro- tects generalism from the colonization of a narrowed medical gaze that excludes all but reductionist evidence or constructivist experience. Defining the Craft of Gene- ralism enables clear teaching of the sophisticated skills and attitudes of the generalist clinician. These philosophically robust principles encourage and defend the use of generalist approaches to knowledge in settings across the community – including health policy, education, and research.