To HATE the phrase "lived experience"?

[ThisFluentBiscuit]

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"

Oh and yes it did exist 10 years ago, at least in the mental health field.

You're annoyed because you can't disprove that "lived experience" is a tautology.

What mental-health worker would claim to have experience of, say, schizophrenia instead of saying that they had a patient experiencing schizophrenia? And if the patient wanted to convey that they had experienced this condition whereas the provider hadn't, they would just say that. "I have experienced this. You have not." We communicated perfectly well without this linguistic blot.

You can watch a ferry leaving Portsmouth and that apparently is 'experience of shipping'.

In my experience the people who object to the concept of things like "lived experience " are those who get outraged at the suggestion that their opinion isn't as valueable as that of others on certain topics - white women talking about racism in the UK springs to mind, or the able bodied talking about accessibility issues.

It doesn’t make sense. The reporter has “lived experience” of the war zone.

Why not just say the reporter has experienced being in a war zone and the civilian has experienced loss and trauma?

I think it's incredibly useful term for anyone involved in support services.
I'm Bipolar. I've been sectioned several times.
I've also worked in the domestic violence unit for 10 years but never directly experience significant domestic violence to myself.

If we are trying to plan a new service for the local authority I work for I can have good experience as a worker for the domestic violence uni. I understand how the systems work but I haven't had lived experience of it or understood what it is like to go through the system and therefore it's important to speak people with lived experience.

Equally I would be able to talk about lived experience of bipolar and the service provision there.

For generations services have been made without the inputs of people with lived experience if the issues services are trying to tackle. Creating ineffective services.

This is slowly changing then when it's been done properly I've seen really impressive.

I think this is one of those terms where clarification word has been needed. It may seem nuanced but the impact isn't.

Did you read my post? I don’t work in academic publishing. That something is the case in the world of academia or medicine doesn’t mean it was the case in the wider world.

Clearly it’s spread beyond that usage but has become meaningless in the process. I can assure you that in my work (non-academic, just to be clear) it is used predominantly in an oxymoronic way.

It's nonsense.

The context tells people all they need to know.

Words are not used out of context.

As an employee there is going to be a difference between what you experience in yur job and what you experience in your personal life.

Whether you are talking to someone or writing about it, they should know the context and if they don't, you need to explain - without using silly phrases like 'lived experience'.

A journalist for example, who talks about their 'experience' makes it very clear in context if it's about THEM or the people in the feature.

Yes it did. It was used in mental health. As was expert by experience.

Professionals may say "in my experience" when talking about their area of work and they mean in my experience of working in this area. If they were to say lived experience you would know they have also been in the situation.

To me it implies an inescapability of the experience.
For example, I lived as a poor, hand to mouth student in my younger days.
This is different from the ‘lives experience’ of being truely poor and growing up in poverty.

Because using 'lived experience' in funding applications get you higher on the points list.

There has historically been a huge issue with psychiatrists’ experiences being prejudiced over those of people with actual mental health conditions. Which is part of why the term lived experience developed.

Are you this rigid about everything OP?

See my previous post.

If you're talking to someone it's very very easy indeed to say something is your personal or professional experience, without resorting to a phrase like lived experience.

The context will show if it's your personal life or that as a professional.

No one needs to say 'lived experience'. There are plenty of ways to say 'This is my personal experience' or 'This is my experience through professional training and working with clients ' Or both- whichever is appropriate to context.

Isn't the phrase needed because of the range of meanings of "experienced". As in the direct (a) "I experience hip pain whenever I climb stairs" versus (b) "I am experienced in rheumatology, specialising in hips and knees"

So the admittedly slightly cringy modifier "lived" is added just to make crystal clear to arrogant (b)s that there is some essential expertise out there that they don't have

No it isn't. "I have experience of treating patients with schizophrenia" / "I have schizophrenia". Or do you not "live" your professional experience?

Nah

Its annoying but only because its over used and stretched beyond it's initial function, described up thread.

Many concepts jump from academia into mainstream media and this happens. ' Narrative' is another example, plus all the language from psychotherapy...

Actually, it's common for health practices in particular roles to have both professional and lived experience. In some roles lived experience is essential.

If we are trying to plan a new service for the local authority I work for I can have knowledge as a worker for the domestic violence uni. I understand how the systems work but I haven't had experience of it or understood what it is like to go through the system and therefore it's important to speak people with experience.

You have knowledge. The people who have experienced it, have experience. You don't need the word 'lived' in there.

It’s is either linguistic laziness (shortening of a longer form) or just the changes that language has due to time, society etc;

As a trans woman she has not really experienced living as an actual woman.
As a trans woman she hasn’t the lived experience of a woman.

It is a general demonstration of the fall of the genitive in most languages. Interesting as a linguist.

Judging by some of the people here, yeah.

"My partner has experience of that kind of thing happening." No, he doesn't. He has never been harassed by some bloke trying to get him to dance by pulling him and trying to take his drink from him. (I assume.) In this scenario, he has experience of watching it happen. You're using the shorthand of your partner experiencing such an event when that's not your intended meaning, which is that he has experience as a witness to harassment. We all use that shorthand, but use of said shorthand does not make the phrase "lived experience" correct.

I used the term quite recently here, apologies if it didn’t make sense. I didn’t realise it would be an irritant. However, in my defence, it was in response to a post suggesting that people of my age were likely to have only worked for 35 years before a long retirement. I’m late 70s, and whilst I can’t answer for every one of my age, my working life, from leaving school at 15 was nearer 50.

I’ve lived a heck of a lot longer than most people who post on here about old age, many who have quite strong opinions about what our lives were and are like. Younger people can’t have experienced old age, and older people’s experiences are very different. Hence my use of the term to describe mine.

But there is when putting together a panel of people to review services, if you don't want to waffle on and make people tune out. It's a simple way of explaining what perspective a person is coming from.
It was still a fairly new phase when person centered planning and service users reviewing and help to plan how the service is delivered, came into being. It went back further when communities (often after riots etc) were involved in shaping their future.

It then extended to medical. Especially when arrogant male surgeons were telling women that their symptoms or pain was imaginary.
My DP's stoma nurse's professional experience is useful, but the lived experience of the people on the FB page is actually better.