After speaking about in2gr8mentalhealth for the first time at the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP) London Branch Staff Wellbeing conference at the end of 2017, I was delighted to talk further about the importance of valuing lived experience in professionals with Dr Roman Racza, Chair. The interview is below from their June 2018 newsletter.
Thank you to Roman, and the DCP, for connecting with this. I'm looking forward to working with the DCP further to promote opportunities for lived experience professionals to feedback into the profession about how their lived experience has been met. We know unfortunately that there is still stigma and fear about sharing this, whether with a colleague, supervisor or wider. Conversations and research is beginning to help us understand more about why this is.
Where stigma exists, we must challenge it, transformational outcomes from experiencing mental distress can deepen practice. Lived experience must be embraced in the mental health professions as part of the human condition to ease sharing where it is important or inspirational: in personal conversations, in discussions about its helpfulness in the therapeutic relationship, or in order to role model debunking stigma to a wider audience.
The mental health professions should be beacons for how to embrace lived experience in the professional workforce. Unfortunately, we are not there yet.
