The phrase "lived experience"

[ifitpleasesandsparkles]

Where has this come from? Why don't people just say "my experience". You have to be alive to have experiences. It's tautologous and sounds pretentious. Your life is your life and it's full of experiences. How can you have an unlived experience?

Have to agree with the OP though it is well down the list of expressions and overused words I'd like to see less or none of.

I seem to remember Simone de Beauvoir using it a lot.

It seems to go back to Wilhelm Dilthey, so quite a long way really.

It has a valid use; if people use it inappropriately and that annoys you fair enough, but the term itself differentiates between people who know about something versus have experienced it. E.g. Boris before having covid versus boris after actually having had covid and being hospitalised

Not sure that was best example though lol

What @SquishySquirmy said. It’s a term which stems from a particular research methodology (phenomenology) so it’s being used a bit out of context in normal everyday life. A bit like the word ‘significant’ - in everyday life we use it to mean important, prominent etc but when used in the context of a research study, it means ‘statistically significant’ eg the new drug being tested really did lower blood pressure (or whatever) and the effect was not due to chance.

There are jobs with the title ‘lived experience practitioners’ it’s just phrasing and not intended to be pretentious, many involve people who have either lived in care, or have experienced significant childhood abuse.

It’s not that it trumps research, it’s just acknowledging that someone who grew up in a care home for example, can bring their experience, and use it positively to support the development of a service. They’re often voluntary positions and can involve things like speaking to trainee social workers about their ‘lived experience’.

Is it simply the phrasing you’re upset about? I have to say, in my experience, they’re rarely me me me many are incredibly brave, using their own life experiences, to improve the lives of others.

@EssentialHummus - you would see it in this way as it is the researcher/investigator outlining the approach being taken to better understand their area of interest. It’s 100% legitimate in the world of research /academia.

OP, if someone tells you that you can't understand trans issues, tell them that in your lived experience of being born a woman, you've found that etc etc.

It can have quite sinister implications, in a way, as it privileges the politics of identity over observable truth and the scientific method

Not always.

My lived experience as a type 1 diabetic is VERY different to that of even the most experienced and compassionate healthcare professional.

My lived experience is also measured in hard data points - every 5 minutes, blood sugar data is surveyed and my pump adjusts the micro bolus of insulin, and this alongside all the data points of things I actively do (correction doses, suspending insulin) is all tracked and stored in the cloud.

It becomes graphs which I study with my endocrinologist to tweak my personal algorithms. In quite an interesting way it backs up my lived experience, because when I discuss how fucking hard I have to work to manage my health, because you can see every time my decision-making requires an action.

@Ponoka7

I used it in my line of work and it's the best description to use. We shouldn't stop using it because it has been hijacked by certain groups to score points.

Perhaps that's what it is and it's irritating because it's becoming used more and more now by a certain type of person in common parlance.

doggy where I see it isn't research/academia but job ads/grant ads - which again seems fine. If you want to prioritise funding for organisations led by survivors of sexual abuse / whatever, it seems a good term to use. The alternative I've seen is a long-winded explanation with lots of examples trying to distinguish professional experience from personal experience.

I haven't heard it used in the mainstream op, sorry.

Ahahaa I thought this was just me!

YANBU this has been irritating me ever since I first heard it. Wanky, pretentious, nobby shite. It just smacks of affected moral superiority.

It's a valid phrase. For all the reasons pps have stated. If you don't like it or understand the context it is valid to use it in, don't use it. It's not a made up phrase and is useful unlike some of the others mentioned.

Which groups are you upset with?

Lived experience of living in care?
Lived experience of csa?
Lived experience of rape?
Lived experience of abject poverty?
Lived experience of living in a war zone?

Not sure I can see that any of the above would be pretentious or smack of affected superiority but maybe that’s just me 🤷‍♀️ I’d probably go for brave and vital.

This keeps popping up at work, particularly in relation to discrimination. A colleague spoke up about how a proposed change would disadvantage her due to disability, and was basically told she was wrong and didn't know what she was talking about . She didn't know how to respond, and was advised 'I feel you're dismissing my lived experience' was an appropriate phrase. It's certainly something I'm going to keep in mind for those moments when someone is so breathtakingly dismissive you're lost for words.

Ironic, OP is all about me, me, me while talking about their hatred of 'lived experience' and the users being all about me, me, me.

'Makes me gag, I despise it, I think other words should be used instead. I find it pretentious to use simple expressions like 'lived experience" but not when I use 'tautologous' because I don't like how the former is being used to shut me up'.

Funny.

You never met my xh. His body use to turn up to an experience but his brain and mind were always elsewhere.

Lived experience makes me want to gag.

You've been given many explanations of why it's an appropriate phrase to use, so I'd suggest this is more of a problem with your own personal sensitivities than other people's language.

@GraduallyWatermelon

Lived experience makes me want to gag.

You've been given many explanations of why it's an appropriate phrase to use, so I'd suggest this is more of a problem with your own personal sensitivities than other people's language.

No, I don't think so. I don't work in the fields PPs work in so i was unaware of its use there. It sounds to me like the phrase has been co-opted by the type of people who play identity politics and use it to shut down conversation.

That's my lived experience of hearing the phrase.

@NotJosieGrosieAnymore

Ahahaa I thought this was just me!

YANBU this has been irritating me ever since I first heard it. Wanky, pretentious, nobby shite. It just smacks of affected moral superiority.

Exactly.

Your problem is with the area in which you've heard it used then. Not the term itself. So be honest about that. You don't agree with what they think so you're dismissing the term.

How can it be wanky and pretentious? It's almost always used to to acknowledge a life that's been pretty shit one way or another. To recognise that someone in need of a service due to abuse, poverty, or other disadvantage, has something to offer by sharing their experience of what it's like to live that way.

@bitheby

At work we use experts by experience. As opposed to experts by training. I work in mental health.

I like this phrase. I see very little of that attitude in MH provision. I'd be interested to know whereabouts (roughly, obvs) you are / what field of MH - it's so encouraging!

I think 'lived experience' is clunky, but it means well as an attempt to differentiate between 'expert (9-5) experience and actual experience. But @bitheby's example is way better.

It isn't necessarily clear. From an example above (and I could do this with any of them), foster care experience could be:

1. Social worker / teacher / care home worker / other person who works with fostered children
2. Mentor / youth club worker / other unpaid worker whp supports foster children
3. Was a looked after child
4. Fostered a child
5. Birth sibling of a fostered child
6. Lived with a child who was fostered
7. Had own child fostered
8. Lived in children's home
9. Adopted at an older age
10. Adopted at a young age.

So is "lived experience" actually clear about what's wanted by way of experience? We assume #1 and #2 are out from the definition. Do they want #3 or #4, the child or the adult, that's not clear? Is associated experience #5, #6, #7 relevant or not? Should #8, #9 and #10 be excluded because they have different looked after experience or not? I agree with OP, if specific experience is wanted then it would be better to identify what experience is wanted and why.

@MRex then one would ask for lived excellence of being fostered, or lived experience of being a looked after child. The term isn't used alone. It's followed by the experience itself.