Elizabeth A. Carpenter-Song

|Research Assoc Professor
Academic Appointments

Research Associate Professor

My work explores lived experiences of mental illness and the contemporary context of U.S. mental health services. As a medical and psychological anthropologist, my scholarship aims to contribute to flows of knowledge and practice between anthropology and medicine. My scholarship is grounded in experience-based and meaning-centered approaches in medical and psychological anthropology, which aim to unite engagement with lived experiences of distress with attention to how structural forces produce and exacerbate suffering. My research in the anthropology of mental health spans three primary areas: (1) examining lived experiences of illness, recovery, and health services; (2) examining the culture of U.S. psychiatry; and (3) translating anthropological concepts and methods to mental health research and practice.

Contact

603-646-3336
Silsby, Room 413
HB 6047

Education

  • PhD, 2007, Case Western Reserve University
  • M.A., 2004, Case Western Reserve University
  • A.B., 2001 Dartmouth College

Selected Publications

  • Carpenter-Song, Elizabeth. 2019. "The kids were my drive": Shattered Families, Moral Striving, and the Loss of Parental Selves in the Wake of Homelessness. Ethos 47:54-72.

  • Snell-Rood, Claire and Elizabeth Carpenter-Song. 2018. Depression in a Depressed Area: Deservingness, Mental Illness, and Treatment in the Contemporary Rural U.S. Social Science and Medicine 219:78-86.

  • Carpenter-Song, Elizabeth and Claire Snell-Rood. 2016. The Changing Context of the Rural U.S.: A Call to Examine the Impacts of Social Change and Rising Social Inequality on Mental Health and Mental Health Care. Psychiatric Services 68(5):503-506.

  • Carpenter-Song, Elizabeth, Joelle Ferron, and Sara Kobylenski. 2016. Social Exclusion and Survival for Families Facing Homelessness in Rural New England. Journal of Social Distress and the Homeless 25(1):41-52.

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