Page 5 | To HATE the phrase "lived experience"?

ThisFluentBiscuit · 2025-03-03T06:36:44+00:00

Pet peeve incoming: By definition, experience is lived! You can hardly have an experience without living it, fgs! And what's the opposite of lived experience? An experience that you've had, yet haven't lived? It's complete nonsense. It's used to sound falsely clever when an argument is weak, like "In my personal experience." Well, of course your experience is personal! You would hardly say, "In my neighbour's experience, I find Florida too cold in December." And it's officially wrong, because it's a tautology. Like "top-floor penthouse." I don't know whether it's the innate stupidity of the phrase or the fact that it's a linguistic fad that annoys me the most. "stamps off"

tipsandtoes · 03/03/2025 21:01

@ThisFluentBiscuit
You've been told over and over dozens of times but you still rigidly stick to your false belief.

It's not a new fangled term. It's been around since the 19th century and has relevance in social as well as research settings.

In qualitativee phenomenologicall research, lived experience refers to the first-hand involvement or direct experiencess* and choices of a given person, and the knowledgee* that they gain from it, as opposed to the knowledge a given person gains from second-hand or mediated source.[1][2] It is a category of qualitative research together with those that focus on society and culture and those that focus on language and communication.[3]

Hth

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:53

Katbum · 03/03/2025 20:51

This is such an ill informed post. You are ill informed on every subject and yet still somehow you are here posturing as an expert, someone with zero experience lived or otherwise of any of this!

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How on earth would you know what lived experience I have and don't have? And you can't argue with my lived experience. That's the point - I've lived it, and only I. Therefore what I say about my lived experience goes. That is my truth.

Hey, maybe there is a use for those daft phrases after all!

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Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:52

Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 20:33

Social workers assess for secured care for children and young people, mental health treatment orders for people with mental health concerns, they’re part of the process for a compulsory treatment orders, or indeed when someone needs to be sectioned. All of which limit liberty in some way.

Yes it used to be a vocational training but it hasn’t been that way for over 20 years, because the landscape changed, what is needed in social work changed, the complexity of cases changed.

It’s a completely different profession to the vocational work of 30 odd years ago - I’ve been around long enough to know.

Interesting. Do you think that social work degrees are harder than the previous vocational training? Or is it the same level but in degree format? Could the vocational course not have taught the new material? I can't imagine being 18 and taking on all that debt for a role which isn't even very well-paid at the end of it. Why make things so hard for young people.

About your first para, when it comes to sectioning someone, isn't that a decision that a psychiatrist would make, or is there a panel of experts and the social worker is a part of it?

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Katbum · 03/03/2025 20:51

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:42

Before, it was an option, but now, nursing degrees require a degree, and the fees have rocketed since 2009.

Vocational training is far more accessible than making everyone do a degree for a vocation, and you used to get paid to train, instead of being stiffed for 30k to do a job that society really needs.

If key workers must have degrees, the council should pay for them. As far as I'm aware, you don't have to have a degree in teaching to be a teacher at secondary level, you just need a PGCE, assuming you have a degree in the subject you want to teach. At primary level, the same thing has happened to education as it has to nursing. You used to go to teacher training college, but now you have to have a degree in education for primary and get stiffed for 30k instead of earning as you train and learn. And I bet these degrees are padded out with made-up parts of the course, probably using faux-complex language like "lived experience," because they have to try to justify the shakedown. The shakedown being that the government no longer has to pay for education and the universities have to recoup that money somehow. Making up disciplines and forcing people to do degrees in them instead of offering a vocational route to the thing they want to do is a great way to do that. Universities are on the shake and make. That's my lived experience.

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This is such an ill informed post. You are ill informed on every subject and yet still somehow you are here posturing as an expert, someone with zero experience lived or otherwise of any of this!

LillyPJ · 03/03/2025 20:46

Igotjelly · 03/03/2025 06:55

I get the impression OP has no intention of trying to understand.

Unfortunately, in these sorts of discussions, that seems to happen on both sides - lots of people talking and not much listening going on.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:42

bringmelaughter · 03/03/2025 20:31

Nursing degrees have been available in the UK since 1960 and it’s been a degree entry profession since 2009. The nursing training they’ve been managing with has been degree level. It’s hardly sudden.

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Before, it was an option, but now, nursing degrees require a degree, and the fees have rocketed since 2009.

Vocational training is far more accessible than making everyone do a degree for a vocation, and you used to get paid to train, instead of being stiffed for 30k to do a job that society really needs.

If key workers must have degrees, the council should pay for them. As far as I'm aware, you don't have to have a degree in teaching to be a teacher at secondary level, you just need a PGCE, assuming you have a degree in the subject you want to teach. At primary level, the same thing has happened to education as it has to nursing. You used to go to teacher training college, but now you have to have a degree in education for primary and get stiffed for 30k instead of earning as you train and learn. And I bet these degrees are padded out with made-up parts of the course, probably using faux-complex language like "lived experience," because they have to try to justify the shakedown. The shakedown being that the government no longer has to pay for education and the universities have to recoup that money somehow. Making up disciplines and forcing people to do degrees in them instead of offering a vocational route to the thing they want to do is a great way to do that. Universities are on the shake and make. That's my lived experience.

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Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 20:33

Social workers assess for secured care for children and young people, mental health treatment orders for people with mental health concerns, they’re part of the process for a compulsory treatment orders, or indeed when someone needs to be sectioned. All of which limit liberty in some way.

Yes it used to be a vocational training but it hasn’t been that way for over 20 years, because the landscape changed, what is needed in social work changed, the complexity of cases changed.

It’s a completely different profession to the vocational work of 30 odd years ago - I’ve been around long enough to know.

Jade520 · 03/03/2025 20:32

It's wank speak, there's a ton of it around. It's right up there with corporate speak 'blue sky thinking' and all that shite. It makes people feel highly intelligent and superior because they know the special lingo. I find it odd tbh.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:31

Joolsin · 03/03/2025 20:05

I agree, op. It's like the dreadful "journey", all the journeys that people are on these days that don't mean travelling!!

PPs have given examples why "experiencing" is different to "lived experience". We used to call this "witnessing" and "experiencing ".

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I'm on a journey of self-experience to find my voice and my truth while I stand in my power. 🤭

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bringmelaughter · 03/03/2025 20:31

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 19:09

Making nursing training into a degree creates an expensive barrier to entry. If nurses have managed with nursing training up to now, why do they suddenly need degrees? They probably study the same things as before anyway, but now they're charged a fortune for it.

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Nursing degrees have been available in the UK since 1960 and it’s been a degree entry profession since 2009. The nursing training they’ve been managing with has been degree level. It’s hardly sudden.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:25

I suppose "lived experience" is OK in a social-work context since probably everyone talks like that and worse. However, the poll results suggest that if you use it in a lay context, 58% of people will think you sound daft or worse. That's worth knowing.

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Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:15

SwedishEdith · 03/03/2025 20:12

The OP sounds like Nigel Farage - just shouting away at everything they dont understand or like.

If correct grammar and usage is a Farage thing, then I guess I am like him.

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SwedishEdith · 03/03/2025 20:12

The OP sounds like Nigel Farage - just shouting away at everything they dont understand or like.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:06

Social work researchers can measure outcomes to see what approaches are effective. You don't need to make up a whole new academic discipline for that.

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Joolsin · 03/03/2025 20:05

I agree, op. It's like the dreadful "journey", all the journeys that people are on these days that don't mean travelling!!

PPs have given examples why "experiencing" is different to "lived experience". We used to call this "witnessing" and "experiencing ".

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 20:02

Boodahh · 03/03/2025 19:58

I agree. Basically we used to say 'personal ' experience and now have to say 'lived'.

It sounds wanky.

Could also say "individual experience." Anything but "lived experience."

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Boodahh · 03/03/2025 19:58

I agree. Basically we used to say 'personal ' experience and now have to say 'lived'.

It sounds wanky.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 19:56

Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 19:39

My point is that it shouldn't be. Why do you need academic research, theories, and ideology to figure out that some people need help from social workers? It's faux-academia.

You need academic research to understand the kind of help that might actually be effective, to understand the balancing of competing rights, to understand and apply an ever complex legislative framework, to think about the many different reasons that people come to need state intervention in their private lives, to understand when that intervention is over reach. You need academic learning to be able to evidence your decision making in a court of law. Where I am social workers routinely find themselves making very complex legal arguments where everyone round the table has a lawyer arguing their case, except the social worker.

We don’t just go into a home for a cup of tea and fill in a form. We’re supporting families, in some cases removing children, in others we’re making decisions the deprive people of their liberty, decisions that have life long impacts on the people we work with. It’s interesting you think we can do that with no theory base, no academic rigour or any legal training.

Again, you clearly have no concept of the role of social work.

I didn't say there should be no classroom-based learning. I said the degrees are over-academic for what is a practical/vocational job.

Also, aren't the degrees a barrier to entry, considering the insane cost of university education now? You used to do vocational training in social work, which also included classroom learning that covered the aspects you mention Now becoming social work is prohibitively expensive for many, which is at odds with the supposedly democratic nature of social work.

How do social workers deprive people of their liberty? Isn't that for the police and then the justice system?

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Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 19:55

Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 19:40

It’s been a long time since nursing training was an on the job training, the profession has changed immeasurably since then, as have the training needs.

Because of new tech? Or are nurses taking on more roles that doctors used to do?

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Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 19:40

It’s been a long time since nursing training was an on the job training, the profession has changed immeasurably since then, as have the training needs.

Jellycatspyjamas · 03/03/2025 19:39

My point is that it shouldn't be. Why do you need academic research, theories, and ideology to figure out that some people need help from social workers? It's faux-academia.

You need academic research to understand the kind of help that might actually be effective, to understand the balancing of competing rights, to understand and apply an ever complex legislative framework, to think about the many different reasons that people come to need state intervention in their private lives, to understand when that intervention is over reach. You need academic learning to be able to evidence your decision making in a court of law. Where I am social workers routinely find themselves making very complex legal arguments where everyone round the table has a lawyer arguing their case, except the social worker.

We don’t just go into a home for a cup of tea and fill in a form. We’re supporting families, in some cases removing children, in others we’re making decisions the deprive people of their liberty, decisions that have life long impacts on the people we work with. It’s interesting you think we can do that with no theory base, no academic rigour or any legal training.

Again, you clearly have no concept of the role of social work.

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 19:09

bringmelaughter · 03/03/2025 18:38

Ah yes we’re onto nurses and degrees. That’ll be bingo!!

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Making nursing training into a degree creates an expensive barrier to entry. If nurses have managed with nursing training up to now, why do they suddenly need degrees? They probably study the same things as before anyway, but now they're charged a fortune for it.

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bringmelaughter · 03/03/2025 18:38

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 18:04

Oh yes, I agree. That's why social workers need to go on courses and be educated and qualified in what they do. The aspects you mention above make sense and are germane to being a social worker. But you should see the nonsensical twaddle of the theories and ideologies of social work degrees. It's barely English. Social work should be a vocational training with classroom work encompassing the sensible things you mention. Like many things that have been academified, you shouldn't need a degree for it. Nurses were always trained in nursing via classroom education and on-the-job experience, but now they all have to have degrees. And the universities are making out like bandits.

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Ah yes we’re onto nurses and degrees. That’ll be bingo!!

Original poster

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 18:20

CoffeeCup14 · 03/03/2025 18:13

I haven't seen a social work textbook but I read a really interesting academic paper on 'safe uncertainty' from a social work perspective. It definitely wasn't gobbledegook.

And I know someone who has both studied and taught research-based social work. She's intelligent and wise and sees value in it. I'd take her view based on experience over your opinion based on one American social work textbook.

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OK, but I still don't see why you need ideologies, theories, research, paradigms, and qualitative and quantitative research to figure out that people who are homeless/addicted/depressed/can't do their activities of daily living without help, and other vulnerable people, are the same people who need help from social workers. Sounds like the study of the bleeding obvious to me.

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CoffeeCup14 · 03/03/2025 18:13

ThisFluentBiscuit · 03/03/2025 18:06

Yes, very sensible. It would be great if the degrees encompassed what you say. But have you seen a social work textbook? They're total gobbledegook. The academification of social work has given us a barely-legible faux academia.

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I haven't seen a social work textbook but I read a really interesting academic paper on 'safe uncertainty' from a social work perspective. It definitely wasn't gobbledegook.

And I know someone who has both studied and taught research-based social work. She's intelligent and wise and sees value in it. I'd take her view based on experience over your opinion based on one American social work textbook.