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Listening to Those with Lived Experience

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Critical Psychiatry

Abstract

The voices of people with lived experience of emotional distress, mental differences, and/or psychiatric treatment are often excluded from traditional psychiatric research and literature. This chapter will highlight the importance of not only including but centering those perspectives, with a focus on perspectives that aim to redefine and reclaim the traits, characteristics, experiences, and phenomena categorized as “mental illness.” Specifically, the author will introduce the Mad Pride movement and neurodiversity paradigm, two frameworks that recognize the value and meaning of the traits commonly perceived as symptoms of mental disorders. Both Mad Pride and neurodiversity posit that these traits are not indicators of pathology or disease but rather forms of diversity and parts of the human experience.

This chapter will present arguments from Mad Pride and neurodiversity activists that challenge some of the dominant assumptions underlying the traditional model of psychiatric care. The author will then discuss how the ideas of Mad Pride and neurodiversity can be applied in four different examples: hallucinations and extreme states, autism, multiplicity, and suicide. The issue of coercion within the mental health system will then be explored from a Mad Pride and neurodiversity standpoint. Finally, the chapter will present suggestions for incorporating these perspectives into the practice of critical psychiatry.

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Correspondence to Emily Sheera Cutler .

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Cutler, E.S. (2019). Listening to Those with Lived Experience. In: Steingard, S. (eds) Critical Psychiatry. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02732-2_8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02732-2_8

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-02731-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-02732-2

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