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?

When an organisation is looking for new trustees, they will often specify the kind of people they need. So maybe "we're particularly keen to hear from those with a legal background, and those with lived experience of destitution"

@saraclara - the word "lived" doesn't add anything in your example. "Experience of being a looked after child" would be sufficient to explain what's needed. "Lived" is only needed to distinguish from expert experience, and as I said would have the potential for misunderstanding.

I have worked in the community sector with people who have various health and social issues. It is to distinguish between the experience you might have as a partner or carer of somone with say mental health issues and your own direct experience. It's a phrase that's been used for 15 plus years I've been working.

those with lived experience of destitution

1. Lived on the streets
2. Lived in emergency or temporary accommodation
3. Grew up in extreme poverty
4. Had been at risk of eviction or lost home without an immediate place to go
5. Extreme poverty; went without some things and used food banks
6. Provided temporary accommodation in own home for someone destitute
7. Family member has been destitute
8. Live-in worker at emergency accommodation site
9. Ran a food bank ...

I know you think it's clear, and I think you mean only #1 or #2, but it actually isn't clear where you draw the line.

@ifitpleasesandsparkles

What about personal experience or first hand experience?

Lived experience makes me want to gag.

But then there's probably going to be someone who equally despises your suggested phrases. So at some point we just need to choose some words.

YANBU at all!!! Utterly unnecessary prefix usually delivered in a swivel-eyed way that implies they are definitely correct. When in fact, all experience and perception is subjective.

Admittedly I haven’t seen it used as a differentiator between personal vs professional, just mainly used in a rabid or “speak to the hand” style inarguable gotcha (in their minds) from the mouths/keyboards of those who don’t seem to understand that other people’s direct personal experience may counteract their own

I’ve never seen or heard it used in a non-rabid frothing fashion, but thankfully only have a throwaway Twitter and no other SM, so it may be more common than I fear.

It isn’t necessary. It just sounds ridiculous.

Ahhhh, I see now. Ha.

The hijacking can be annoying, but the visceral reaction described is unreasonable when it could take moments to research the term and its uses. Social media always warps things so using it as a basis for everyone who uses that term was always going to be warped, it's a terrible place to learn most things.

Ownvoices can also be annoying, but as a marketing term, a term to used for changes in publishing, and a term to search for books, it can be useful. Sometimes, yes, I want to read or buy a book from someone with lived experience. When my children were younger, I bought them some books by American Indigenous authors, because I wanted them to read something of and from their heritage on my side that they're not really going to get living in the UK and is so often misrepresented. It may not matter to some, but it does matter to many people to either see those like themselves represented well by those like us or to get information from experience rather than academia or imagination. Ownvoices's rise in popularity as a concept has made that a lot easier and if it pushes publishers to work with good authors that tend to get overlooked, I can look beyond the occasional annoying tweet.

Fair enough, if there is a standardised meaning and usage of the phrase in some sectors I appreciate that I may have been unreasonable in my previous comment.

I have worked in MH for seven years in a post which involves regular contact with third parties (police, LA, social workers) and have never heard the phrase used until recently in the media.

The majority of our patients have horrendous histories of abuse and trauma in additional to mental illness. I would never in a million years minimise or dismiss their experiences, however I think the phrase “lived experience” is rapidly becoming the next virtue-signalling buzz phrase we will probably be hearing ad nauseum until the end of time.

In any case, isn’t all personal experience “lived” experience by definition?!

Maybe those using their personal experiences to support and improve services for others, are better placed to decide which term they’d prefer 🤷‍♀️

What a nasty, goady thread.

"Lived experience" is only ever used to describe people who have experienced real hardship and oppression, eg "lived experience of homelessness" or "lived experience of racism."

This is just another woke-bashing "I hate anyone who's not posh and white" thread.

OP, no one cares that you think marginalised people are "me me me". In fact no one cares what you think. Get over yourself and stop being so damn whingy.

In any case, isn’t all personal experience “lived” experience by definition?!

Do you genuinely not understand the difference between BEING homeless and WORKING with homeless people? The mind boggles.

Maybe those using their personal experiences to support and improve services for others, are better placed to decide which term they’d prefer 🤷‍♀️

No! Posh white women must decide EVERYTHING, because letting black people or homeless people or lesbians have a voice for themselves is just "virtue signalling tedious wokesterism" only practiced by blue haired Goldsmiths students. Didn't you know?

There's only been about eight million Mumsnet threads on it.

@PurpleCrocuses what an utterly ludicrous response.

It’s the terminology under discussion not the denigration of anybody’s experience or trauma. One is perfectly allowed to discuss the use of language without being labelled a big fat racist (which is essentially what you’re saying).

And I’m not even white.

No! Posh white women must decide EVERYTHING

Oh, soz, I didn’t get the memo 😂 I shall sit back down in my place

As if people from groups who are able to use the phrase lived experience need any extra crap from people on the internet about the phrasing used to describe them.

Of course, any life experience is lived experience, but that’s really not the point. ‘Lived crap experiences’ hardly rolls off the tongue.

I can see why it might annoy, it’s very much up their with “speak my truth” I agree.

Is it? In what way? I work in a sector where the term "lived experience" is used frequently to differentiate between professional experience and someone who has experienced a particular difficulty or hardship themselves. I have never, ever heard anyone use the phrase "speak my truth" in a professional context, I've only ever heard it being spouted by celebrities or seen it on those awful "inspirational" memes people put on social media. If anyone at work used the phrase "speak my truth" they'd get the piss taken out of them forevermore! Whereas the phrase "lived experience" is standard in certain sectors and has been for many years.
I don't get the similarly between the two phrases at all.

We used to use it in my previous DV support worker role to differentiate between the experience the person we were supporting had had and the experience we were told the person we were supporting had had by the police, social services, their parents etc.

It was quite common when working with children that the parents would say the child had been through XYZ and needed support with particular issues but when we discussed this with the child it wasn't their experience at all and actually they wanted support with something totally different.

In any case, isn’t all personal experience “lived” experience by definition?!

Phrases like personal experience or first hand experience can be open to interpretation. I've worked with children who have been sexually abused. I have "personally" heard some very disturbing disclosures and seen some distressing images, I have personally accompanied them to court, witnessed their distress and seen "first hand" the impact on them and their families. But they are the ones who lived through that experience. Not me. That's the difference.

I do actually have lived experience of CSA, in addition to the above. I wouldn't say I have "personal" experience of CSA because that could mean other things. It could mean CSA occurred within my household, or that one of my DC had been abused, it could even mean I was a perpetrator. Not the same thing at all as living through the experience of being abused yourself. No-one is stopping anyone using the phrase personal experience if they prefer it, but why so many posters are getting worked up about people using a phrase that feels comfortable for them is beyond me.

@Washimal that's my feeling too.

As a DV worker I had personal experience of all kinds of DV related things.

As it happens, I also have lived experience of DV.

But do I have lived experience of being a 6 year old living in a home where there is DV? No, I do not.

Do I have personal experience of working with children in those situations? Yes, I do.

@CleanQueen123, exactly! It's all very well people on MN dismissing the phrase as "pretentious" and saying "can't you just use XYZ instead?" but these distinctions do matter, particularly in a context where the professional can become blurred with the personal.

Totally agree with what has been said about difference between personal experience and lived experience.

Also, we have experts by experience as mentioned. In my Trust these are people who usually assist with staff training. I would use the term lived experience for myself but not expert by experience. I am a MH professional with lived experience of xx but not an expert by experience. Both are equally valid terms, not to be disparaged in my opinion.

Nooch my only slight issue with "expert by experience" is that I have known people set themselves up in private practice as "Mental health experts", or "experts in children with SEND" advertising their services in a way that strongly implies they are a qualified professional but somewhere on their website it mentions in the smallest of small print that they are an "expert by experience". But if people are inclined to scam others or be disingenuous they will find a way to do so, I guess regardless of what terminology is used.

A lot of the time it's extra words for the sake of it. Lived experience of living in foster care = been in foster care. Lived experience of destitution = been destitute.

Also, prepositions are useful. Experience of schizophrenia = has/has had schizophrenia. Experience in schizophrenia = has worked with people with schizophrenia.

"Lived experience" is most usefully saved for contexts where it adds something meaningful, and there are some instances people have mentioned where it does. But much of the time it's a buzzword saying "Our organisation values subjective minority experience, honest guv" or sometimes "Who needs experts when we have our feelings to show us the truth".

Where has this come from?
USA

YABU

It's a useful phrase. And so is "this is my truth..."

I think both empower those who have experienced difficult things.

@rosiejaune

It's an important term to differentiate between people who understand an issue from the inside, and people who have just read about it, or been involved in the life of someone else who experiences it (whether as a friend, family member, or HCP).

It's good that people are taking it more seriously now, and are starting to listen to people who actually know what X is like and what could be improved and how.

I agree with this .

I think that where people are annoyed by the phrase are seeing it used in the wrong context .