Bernice Brijan

Bernice Brijan is a researcher at Tilburg University's School of Catholic Theology, specializing in the intersection of mental health recovery, phenomenological psychopathology, and theological perspectives. Her work centers on existential dimensions of personal recovery from severe mental illness, with particular focus on grief, loss, and重建 of world-connection.

Her research interests explore existential loss in psychiatric contexts, arguing that conventional recovery models insufficiently address alterations in the background structure of experience. She develops frameworks integrating phenomenological approaches with religious healing traditions to reconceptualize personal recovery as restoration of hope and trust in the world. Key areas include grief processing in severe depression/schizophrenia, meaning reconstruction, and embodiment in recovery processes.

Recent publications demonstrate consistent thematic focus on existential aspects of recovery across psychiatry and spiritual care domains. Her 2023-2025 works establish connections between phenomenological psychopathology, theological healing concepts, and practical recovery frameworks, showing increasing integration of philosophical, clinical, and spiritual perspectives in advancing recovery models.

Her scientific recognition includes:

• Florentino García Martínez Research Master Scholarship (2013)
• GUF-100 Prize (2017)

Brijan serves as Principal Investigator for the €250,000 NWO-funded project Coming Home Again to the World (2019-2024), examining personal recovery through phenomenology and psychopathology lenses. She actively contributes to interdisciplinary discourse through invited talks at institutions like the University of York and editorial work for Schrift journal, bridging academic research with public mental health discourse through media engagements on vulnerability and support systems.