Virginia Ballesteros completed her PhD in Philosophy at the University of Valencia, with the dissertation, Conceptions of Mental Illness: in Search of Reality (2021). She holds a postgraduate degree in Therapeutic Action and its Social Repercussions (UNED, 2017) and a master’s degree in Contemporary Philosophical Thought (University of Valencia, 2015). She has done a research stay at the Sapienza University of Rome and at the Institute for Philosophical Research of Lyon.

Her research focuses on the philosophy of birth — particularly, on the metaphysical and epistemological aspects of birth care. She is also interested in the philosophy of psychiatry, i.e. the metaphysical assumptions underlying the conception and treatment of mental illness and the role of altered states of consciousness in psychiatry.

She is a member of the research project, ‘Philosophy of Birth: A New Logos for Genos (PHILBIRTH-2)’, Programme of Excellence, Complutense University of Madrid (2021-23).