Mental Health and Therapy
Following many years of collaborating with systemic therapists Ellen Reijmers and Thomas Fondelli from the Interactie Academie in Antwerp, I have developed professional interest in the topic of mental health and enactive approaches to psychiatry.
I wrote about ASD, metaphors, play therapy, and temporal experiences in bipolar people. I'm supervising two PhD students who work on the topic of virtual rape and therapeutic interventions in VR. In 2023 I taught a course on the Philosophy of Mental Health at the University of Antwerp.
Between 2022-2025, I have been a member of a German DFG project "The role of ambivalence for suicidal agency". It resulted in a book chapter on "Situated suicidality", with co-authors Lieke Asma and Sabrina Coninx.
Saroka, V., Schnitzler, T., Potępa, E., Rucińska, Z., & Moskalewicz, M. (2026). Beyond stagnation and acceleration: the shared atemporal core of bipolar experience. Philosophical Psychology, 1–38. https://doi.org/10.1080/09515089.2026.2736741
Rucińska, Z., Asma, L. & Coninx, S. (2026). Situated suicidality: taking the environment seriously. In R. Baston & M. Weichold (Eds.), Exploring Suicidal Ambivalence: Philosophical and Psychological Perspectives. Routledge. ISBN 9781041017486
Fondelli, T. & Rucińska, Z. (2021). Aan de slag met metaforen. Systeemtheoretisch Bulletin 1, JG 39, pp. 53-74.
Rucińska, Z., Fondelli, T. & Gallagher, S. (2021). Embodied Imagination and Metaphor Use in Autism Spectrum Disorder. Healthcare, 9, 200. https://doi.org/10.3390/ healthcare9020200
Rucińska, Z. (2021) Enactive Approach to Metaphoric Engagements of Children with ASD. Journal of Child and Adolescent Behavior, 9: 419.
Rucińska, Z. (2015). The Many Levels of Intersubjectivity: Comment on Fuchs’ ‘Pathologies of Intersubjectivity in Autism and Schizophrenia’. Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol. 22 (1-2), 215-219. ISSN: 13558250
Rucińska, Z. and Reijmers, E. (2015). Enactive Account of Pretend Play and its Application to Therapy. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 175. Published online on 2 Mar 2015.
https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00175
Rucińska, Z. and Reijmers, E. (2014). Between Philosophy and Therapy: Understanding Systemic Play Therapy through Embodied and Enactive Cognition (EEC). InterAction: the Journal of Solution Focus in Organisations, 6(1), 37-52.