Opposition to Non-consensual Police and Counselor In-Person Crisis Intervention (Suicide and Crisis Hotlines)

If this work is helpful, please consider donating or hiring me for consulting work (see more below) 

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A note about suicide and crisis hotlines.

Myself, and queer community peers, stand in opposition to non-consensual police intervention and forced psychiatric incarceration. The Trevor Project hotline does not have a no-intervention policy. Some smaller, less well-supported hotlines do, including the Trans Lifeline hotline.

It's a complex topic with no fully black and white perfect answer. I can't ignore that at least a few lives have been saved. But does that outweigh the immense damage and risk? Would those lives have been saved by other intervention strategies? These are questions to start asking.

Trans Lifeline FAQ: Why No Non-Consensual Active Rescue?

Since we launched, Trans Lifeline has abided by three unwavering principles: 1) all our operators must be trans; 2) we believe in the power of peer support from shared lived experience; 3) we do not call emergency services to assist a caller in danger without their request. ... Operators are often trained on the theory that any caller who mentions suicidal ideation is at risk and requires immediate intervention. While at first glance an understandable blanket policy, non-consensual active rescue entails a number of risks that are made significantly more severe when a caller is trans.

Article: Suicide Hotlines and the Impact of Non-Consensual Interventions

Those struggling with suicidal thoughts may stay silent instead of reaching out to suicide hotlines because they fear non-consensual intervention and the harmful impact of police involvement.

Article: Social media posts warn people not to call 988. Here's what you need to know

Liz Winston, who authored the Instagram post calling 988 "not friendly," said she wanted people to understand all the potential outcomes of calling so they wouldn't be blindsided by the "traumatizing system" that she experienced. Last summer, Winston was having suicidal thoughts and visited a hospital in New York. She hoped to speak with a psychiatrist but instead was involuntarily detained in the psychiatric wing of the emergency room. She said that she did not receive any counseling during the 24 hours she spent there and that the experience was "extremely traumatic."

Article: Who’s Listening When You Call a Crisis Hotline?

Many of these hotlines that call themselves confidential will also geolocate callers (via landline, cell company, IP address, or GPS chip in your mobile phone)—which you might not know unless you’ve read the terms of service in full before dialing the number.

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This article brought to you by the currently unfunded Peer Voices Network. 

Please consider donating to support this work. I am disabled, financially struggling, and am forced by existing social structures into producing content like this for free. I hope those with means and privilege will eventually shift priorities toward increased support for lived experience content generation and expertise sharing. Donations are never required and always appreciated. 

Donate Link: https://ko-fi.com/socialrealitylab

I am also available for consultation work, curriculum development, trainings, etc.. I enjoy partnering with organizations on development of more accurate understandings of social reality. 

Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@peervoicesnetwork

I can be reached by email at peervoicesnetwork@gmail.com

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The Concept of Performative Ethics, a Case Study from Mental Health Services

If this work is helpful, please consider donating or hiring me for consulting work (see more below) 

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Been meaning to discuss this topic for a while and finally wrote out some text in a chat with a colleague this afternoon. Wouldn't consider this finished but is enough to post and maybe get the conversation started. Work in progress. We need to talk about performative ethics standards in health care.

One of my favorite examples of what I'd maybe call "Aspirational But Performative Ethics", from the psychotherapy counseling world, is how absurdly weak the non-abandonment ethics promise is in practice. 

If you're not familiar, the standard that's been settled into is that if a client is terminated while still needing help, you're not supposed to abandon them. Which sounds amazing in theory. But in practice what happens in the "three references" letter, which can be as minimal as searching  the top three names in their city off Psychology Today, all three of whom might be booked up or already tried. And yet that is iron-clad protection against an ethics violation.

Scores of professionals are abandoning clients every week, all the while applauding themselves for how they uphold a rigorous ethical standard and use that to deflect any critique.

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This article brought to you by the currently unfunded Peer Voices Network. 

Please consider donating to support this work. I am disabled, financially struggling, and am forced by existing social structures into producing content like this for free. I hope those with means and privilege will eventually shift priorities toward increased support for lived experience content generation and expertise sharing. Donations are never required and always appreciated. 

Donate Link: https://ko-fi.com/socialrealitylab

I am also available for consultation work, curriculum development, trainings, etc.. I enjoy partnering with organizations on development of more accurate understandings of social reality. 

Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@peervoicesnetwork

I can be reached by email at peervoicesnetwork@gmail.com

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Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

First Attempt at Notes on Imposter Syndrome + Who's Responsible For Distress?

If this work is helpful, please consider donating or hiring me for consulting work (see more below) 

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Saw several social media posts on the concept of imposter syndrome this week. Have sketched out some initial draft thoughts and notes. 

Currently, imposter syndrome seems most often used to refer to internal monologues in one's head, alongside disabling feelings such as feeling anxious/distressed/dysregulated. One example, from the ADHD/autism advocacy world, was this post excerpt:

Imposter Syndrome Me:

  "Real adults just get things done the normal way. You are such a weakling."

Autistic Me:

   Most of those adults are able to keep track of everything because they aren't having to tune out constant sensory overload.

...

The concept Imposter Syndrome is being used to describe a fight against constant feelings of inferiority, after years of being called lazy, willfully disorganized, and unhinged.

I highlighted "describe a fight" because, buried within those words, is a hidden lack of discussion on who is accountable for those feelings. And it conflates two very linked and related, but seperate concepts worth unpacking. Two things I want to highlight are that we're talking about.

1) Attempts to conquer an illusion of things that aren't true (you are such a weakling)

2) Being called lazy, willfully disorganized, and unhinged

Both of things are problems. One problem often causes the other. And we can note that this is yet another example where modern concepts of help frame the entire problem solely and only as fixing the symptom (feelings of inadequacy) but not the root cause (being called lazy, willfully disorganized, and unhinged).

So that's one point. Are we discussing stopping the ableist judgement? Almost never. We ask individuals to "tolerate", to "not listen", and do take upon themselves the incredibly hard work of battling the inner critic, even as that critic is constantly reinforced by external status quo from society.

And, critically, these expectation of others are not just words. Even then, we need to address that harms caused by the words themselves (often the root of what's bringing Imposter Syndrome about in the first place). But also...

We also need to discuss this term within the context of actual oppression. Not just the developed illusion about one's own competency, but about the real-world expectations others are holding a person to, often under threat of punishment, isolation, or abuse. An attempt to call out the factual, actual realities of systemic bias and exclusion. This is excellently detailed in the following article...

Article: Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome

Tulshyan and Burey discuss examples of certain cultural expectations and social norms being forced on others in damaging, hurtful, and unjust ways. It's a common theme across so many marginalized groups. This article focuses on that theme playing out for BIPOC women in the workforce. As the article discusses...

"Even if women demonstrate strength, ambition, and resilience, our daily battles with microaggressions, especially expectations and assumptions formed by stereotypes and racism, often push us down. Imposter syndrome as a concept fails to capture this dynamic and puts the onus on women to deal with the effects. Workplaces remain misdirected toward seeking individual solutions for issues disproportionately caused by systems of discrimination and abuses of power."

And it's this point, which, to me, remains a massive constant failing of modern discourse about the notion. The experience is very real. The conversation why it's occurring and who ought to be held responsible remains deeply problematic. 

I will again refute the ongoing suffering control ethic that an individual responsibility to "tolerate",  "be resilient", or "not let these experiences et to you". It is a perfectly functional, normal reaction to experience immense and ongoing emotional suffering in response to external factors - including Imposter Syndrome feelings. We should be demanding an to systems of discrimination and abuses of power, but instead all we're offered is blame for not being able to tolerate the abuse. 

I don't say this to dismiss what personal healing can be gained from self-discovered refutation of Imposter Syndrome feelings. It is to say, I question the extent to which full healing is possible, and to demand that we not ignore the ultimate root source of the issue - the problematic external behaviors themselves. 

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This article brought to you by the currently unfunded Peer Voices Network. 

Please consider donating to support this work. I am disabled, financially struggling, and am forced by existing social structures into producing content like this for free. I hope those with means and privilege will eventually shift priorities toward increased support for lived experience content generation and expertise sharing. Donations are never required and always appreciated. 

Donate Link: https://ko-fi.com/socialrealitylab

I am also available for consultation work, curriculum development, trainings, etc.. I enjoy partnering with organizations on development of more accurate understandings of social reality. 

Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@peervoicesnetwork

I can be reached by email at peervoicesnetwork@gmail.com

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Photo by Akson on Unsplash

What Is Conceptual Engineering?

 Draft overview document - work in progress. Below is language from a draft report of lived experience inclusion methodologies, needs, and gaps.

Conceptual Engineering Needs In Mental Health

A more layman description of this effort can be described as: "Developing More Accurate and Culturally-Sensitive Understandings of Emotional Distress". Making sure, when we use a term like "disorder" or "disease" or "problem", everyone in the room is on the same page understanding what's being meant by use of that term. And, critically, that the peer population itself has co-created those terms and given consent that their living experience feels accurately represented and validated.

Project deliverables tend to involve items such as education materials and trainings. For example, for the opioid crisis, a presentation example might look like: "A Fully Holistic Understanding of Substance Use Disorder". This would include an overview of how previously un-considered treatment options reveal themselves when we collectively re-adjust our understandings and framings of the issue at hand. This can also then lead into practical policy/services suggestions for decision-makers such as opioid settlement funds Boards and councils.

Article Example: Response to "Opioid Addiction is a Disorder of Brain Structure" – Importance of Explaining Neuroscience Accurately

Example Conceptual Engineering Paper 

"The concept of climate injustice and a socio-critical, psychoanalytical perspective associate the climate crisis with other forms of social injustice classifying these as ‘social pathologies’. ... Some ‘psychopathology’ can be reframed as a meaningful, resistant expression of social grievances." 

Bauriedl-Schmidt et al. (2022)

Article Link: Understanding climate injustice as social pathology through the lens of psychoanalysis, recognition theory and critical psychology

Example Concept Misalignment Study

"Research published online Thursday in the journal Open Mind shows that our concepts about and associations with even the most basic words vary widely. At the same time, people tend to significantly overestimate how many others hold the same conceptual beliefs — the mental groupings we create as shortcuts for understanding similar objects, words or events. ... Take penguins. The probability that two people selected at random will share the same concept about penguins is around 12%, Kidd said."

New research from UC Berkeley about mismatch in conceptual definitions, March 2023

Article Link: I say dog, you say chicken? New study explores why we disagree so often

Lived Experience Inclusion Project Types Overview (Draft Half-Finished Report In-Progress)

Background

Start of a overview report detailing specific methods Peer Voices Network recommends for incorporating lived experience input into health services funding decision-making efforts. This report is being tailored for a health committee working on substance use health policy and treatment recommendations. 

Lived Experience Inclusion Project Types Overview Report (Incomplete In-Progress Draft)

1) Needs Assessment

A classic policy research option, this would involve a report centered around the question of "what does the lived experience community itself think it most needs?". And, specific to opioid settlement funds, reporting on "what does the full lived experience community think the money would be best spent on?". Peer Voices Network has connections to communities and perspectives often not heard from or elevated, and conducts research using novel co-produced community input methodologies.

Example Methodology: "Problem Tree" Community Mapping

Lived Experience / Research Misalignment Example (from autism work, our other speciality area)

"Studies show that autistic people want more research on mental health, services and the other conditions that many of them experience — including epilepsy, gastrointestinal pain, intellectual disabilities and sleep problems. However, most funding goes to studies on genetic and environmental risk factors, treatments and interventions."

Nature News Feature, May 2023

Article Link: ‘I am not a broken version of normal’ — autistic people argue for a stronger voice in research

2) Conceptual Engineering

A more layman description of this effort can be described as: "Developing More Accurate and Culturally-Sensitive Understandings of Emotional Distress". Making sure, when we use a term like "disorder" or "disease" or "problem", everyone in the room is on the same page understanding what's being meant by use of that term. And, critically, that the peer population itself has co-created those terms and given consent that their living experience feels accurately represented and validated.

Project deliverables tend to involve items such as education materials and trainings. For example, for the opioid crisis, a presentation example might look like: "A Fully Holistic Understanding of Substance Use Disorder". This would include an overview of how previously un-considered treatment options reveal themselves when we collectively re-adjust our understandings and framings of the issue at hand. This can also then lead into practical policy/services suggestions for decision-makers such as opioid settlement funds Boards and councils.

Example Conceptual Engineering Paper 

"The concept of climate injustice and a socio-critical, psychoanalytical perspective associate the climate crisis with other forms of social injustice classifying these as ‘social pathologies’. ... Some ‘psychopathology’ can be reframed as a meaningful, resistant expression of social grievances." 

Bauriedl-Schmidt et al. (2022)

Article Link: Understanding climate injustice as social pathology through the lens of psychoanalysis, recognition theory and critical psychology

Example Concept Misalignment Study

"Research published online Thursday in the journal Open Mind shows that our concepts about and associations with even the most basic words vary widely. At the same time, people tend to significantly overestimate how many others hold the same conceptual beliefs — the mental groupings we create as shortcuts for understanding similar objects, words or events. ... Take penguins. The probability that two people selected at random will share the same concept about penguins is around 12%, Kidd said."

New research from UC Berkeley about mismatch in conceptual definitions, March 2023

Article Link: I say dog, you say chicken? New study explores why we disagree so often

Racism and Sexism Within the Behavioral Science Evidence Base - A Letter to Decision Makers

If this work is helpful, please consider donating or hiring me for consulting work (see more below) 

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Background Context 

This is a letter addressed to an opioid settlement funds distribution board in Oregon. The opioid settlement funds are the result of a collection of lawsuits filed against pharmaceutical drug manufacturing corporations for their role in worsening the ongoing American drug crisis. A crisis especially notable for the recent surge in preventable overdose deaths. Settlement awards of upwards of $50 billion dollars were awarded, in theory, to members of the population affected by the drug crisis. Fund allocation is managed by state and local governments, most commonly through formation of a governing board or council.

In the State of Oregon, state-level allocations are managed by the Opioid Settlement Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Board.

Many of these governing entities will desire to use evidence-based approaches to help guide decisions about funds use. The following letter, read out as part of public comment at the June 7th, 2023 Oregon board meeting, is a cautionary note about medical evidence given a backdrop of ongoing systemic racism, ableism, sexism, and other prejudicial biases. Biased backed into the root core of our medical knowledge base going back 120+ years, and in some instances 2,000+ years.

Statement Presented at the June 7th Oregon State Opioid Settlement Prevention, Treatment and Recovery Board

Dear members,

This Board has noted several times that it wishes for the use of settlement funds to be both evidence-based and culturally responsive. Given those goals, a colleague of mine posed a question last week I'd like the Board to take under consideration. If providing inclusive, culturally responsive, trauma-informed, and accessible care is considered innovative or a speciality, then what type of care are we providing now?

An obvious answer to that question is that such care is not the current standard. And we know this is true. We have studies showing that women are frequently and improperly diagnosed with borderline personality disorder simply for exhibiting basic human emotion. We know that black children are frequently and improperly diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder, while their white counterparts with similar behavior patterns are diagnosed with ADHD. The black child is medically labeled as defiant while the white child is not. These examples are not rare one-offs. Hundreds of similar examples are out there.

I would ask this Board to keep these examples in mind every time they read through a medical research report or look over a medical data point. I would ask that you start learning everything you can about how the evidence base and practice of medicine is not immune to the racism, ableism, sexism, and other prejudice present in our society. Am happy to suggest resources and reports on this matter.

I need this legacy of prejudice to be understood. Because I very much desire that we have a conversation, ideally quite soon, about the fact that science is telling you that drug addicts are broken and diseased individuals. This is the same science that's guilty of being sexist towards women and racist toward black children. These aren't problems of some bygone era. These are problems with us right now in present times. This is science my peer community did not consent to or sign off on. It is science about us, without out. 

I want this Board to keep asking if it's drug users themselves who are broken, or if it's also, sometimes, the society around them that's broken? Could we not address both when considering treatment? These aren't questions with simple answers. These are questions deserving a nuanced conversation, and it's a conversation rarely supported by current medical practice.

These are questions you, right here, all have been empowered with resources to help investigate and answer. Please consider doing so. 

And, as a final note, will remind you again that the peer community has not been invited to those conversations, and is still not funded to write such reports. Which is a key reason why the mainstream science community keeps making so many mistakes when it comes to the topic of behavioral health. 

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This article brought to you by the currently unfunded Peer Voices Network. 

Please consider donating to support this work. I am disabled, financially struggling, and am forced by existing social structures into producing content like this for free. I hope those with means and privilege will eventually shift priorities toward increased support for lived experience content generation and expertise sharing. Donations are never required and always appreciated. 

Donate Link: https://ko-fi.com/socialrealitylab

I am also available for consultation work, curriculum development, trainings, etc.. I enjoy partnering with organizations on development of more accurate understandings of social reality. 

Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@peervoicesnetwork

I can be reached by email at peervoicesnetwork@gmail.com

* * *

Photo by James Eades on Unsplash

List of Peer Voices Network Articles

February 2024

• Early Notes on Challenges and Pitfalls of the "Safe Space" Concept

January 2024

• Self-Care: Sometimes Helpful, Sometimes a Tool of Oppression

December 2023

• Evidence Against Mental Health First Aid - Not Helpful, Frequently Harmful

November 2023

• Trigger Warnings and Suicidality

• Other Assorted Important Reads (Resource Gallery)

October 2023

• How St. Louis City Staff Could Immediately Raise $440,000 To Support the Homeless

• Perfectionism, Liberation Psychology, and Perception Matching Reality

• Feedback about Harm Caused is Not "Being Negative"

September 2023

• Compassion Hijacking - How Objectively Faulty World Views Are Used To Justify Oppression

• The Accountability Triangle

• Crushing a Grape and Crushing a Human Aren't The Same Thing - Why False Equivalent Analogies Are Problematic

• Dual Assumption Error

August 2023

• What Advocacy Takes and Why We Need to Do It Anyway (Story Gallery)

• Performative Non-Commitment DEI Case Study - Boston University School of Public Health

• Responsibility Hypocrisy 101

• My Critiques of van der Kolk's Bestseller The Body Keeps Score

 July 2023

• Draft Thoughts on Professional Defensiveness (Work in Progress)

• A Brief Note On Neurodivergent Listening Styles

• Words Matter Series: "Feels Like Disrespect" Versus "Was Disrespect"

• Why Telling People to "Accept Reality" Can Be Deeply Problematic and Oppressive Phrasing

• Lived Experience Inclusion Effectiveness - Literature Review Gallery

• Another Update / Overview of the "Peer Inclusion in Health Systems" Movement: Why We Need Support

June 2023

• The Concept of Performative Ethics, a Case Study from Mental Health Services

• First Attempt at Notes on Imposter Syndrome + Who's Responsible For Distress?

• What Is Conceptual Engineering?

• Lived Experience Inclusion Project Types Overview (Draft Half-Finished Report In-Progress)

• Racism and Sexism Within the Behavioral Science Evidence Base - A Letter to Decision Makers

• Response to "Opioid Addiction is a Disorder of Brain Structure" – Importance of Explaining Neuroscience Accurately

May 2023

• Functional Communication, Disability Rights Theory, and Value-Added Versus Value-Neutral Word Definitions

• Advocacy Statement To a Member of the NIH Working Group on Disability

• Human Minds Are Unique. Carbon Atoms Aren't. Why That Matters When We Talk About Mental Health Disorders

• Holding Individuals, Parents, or Society Accountable When A Child Has No Friends?

• Counter-Response to "A Teacher Never Fails, Only You Do"

• Latest Draft Attempt at Explaining "What is Gender?"

• Letter to Boston University Asking for Co-Empowered Peer Inclusion in Public Health Research and Support Efforts

April 2023

• Social Anxiety, Liberation Psychology, and Perception Matching Reality

• Social Services Report: Rebuking Individualism, Lack of Effective Services, Medical Racism/Ableism, and Proposed Solutions

March 2023

• Response to an Infographic on People Pleasing

• Physical Violence and Mental Violence - Which is Really Worse?

• Blaming The Distressed Is Distortion of Reality (How to Work in Mental Health Reality, Not Mental Health Mythology)

February 2023

• The Hard Truth Of When, Sometimes, Help Does Not Exist (Even Though It Could)

• Inclusion Or Tokenism? Response to Washington State's Attempt to Legally Codify Lived Experience Inclusion

• Fundraising Barriers at Square Zero

January 2023

• A Condition I Have - Hyper Semantic Sensitivity / Semantic OCD

December 2022

• What Is The Peer Workforce? What Is a Peer Support Specialist?

• The America "Dream" of Children Needing Saving and Parents Deserving Blame

• Mental Health Advocacy Resources

• If Money Expresses Value Why Does So Much Preventable Suffering Exist?

• When Personal Boundaries Fail - Part 1

• The Lived Experience Input Gap

November 2022

• Yet Another Problematic Example of the Medical Model of Mental Health

• The Philosophy Cliff: Why Applied Philosophy Matters ... Sometimes

• Moving Beyond The "Effective" or "Ineffective" Dichotomy in Occupational Therapy

• Response to the Question of Neuroplasticity

• All Stats Lie - Examples of Social Science Data and "Evidence-Based" Failures

• Why It's Problematic That Self-Regulation Is The Main Solution On Offer For Emotional Distress

October 2022

• Why Words Matter - "Coping Skills"

September 2022

• What Does the Term "Language" Mean - On Word Use Disagreement and How to Effectively Handle Such Situations

• Critique of "Maladaptive Coping", Emotional Regulation, and Other Related Concepts

August 2022

• The Problem is Hermeneutical Injustice and The Solution is Conceptual Engineering

• Glossary of Terms

• Job Hunting - The Two Things You Need to Demonstrate To Get Hired

• The Reality of Interdependence (and why it matters for counseling)

July 2022

• Three Ways This Therapist Disrespected Me When Replying to My First Inquiry Email, And Tips For How To Do Better

June 2022

• Are Those in Power Themselves Disempowered? Thoughts On Accidental System Entrapment

May 2022

• We Need To Talk About Why "We Need More Love" Isn't the Answer

• Today's Instance of Myth of Self-Empowerment

• Twitter Chatter: History of Labor Conflict Reporting

April 2022

• Mental Health: Focusing Beyond the Individual

• Analysis and critique of "you don't have to explain yourself" advice

March 2022

• Various Ways We Study the Human Mind

• Is Pink Real?

February 2022

• Who Raises Children?

• Why "Trust But Verify" Is Backwards

April 2021

• Draft Attempt - What Are Mental Health Disorders

December 2020

• Scattered Thoughts on Therapy Supervision and Client Self-Advocacy

• Mental Health and Polyvagal Theory and the Sympathetic & Parasympathetic Nervous Systems

August 2020

• Essay on Relationship With Self, Others, and Society

July 2020

• The Assertive Empathy Game Plan for Conversations

• Tips for Calling an Emotional Crisis and/or Suicide Prevention Hotline

• Setting Conversation Expectations

• hi

Response to "Opioid Addiction is a Disorder of Brain Structure" – Importance of Explaining Neuroscience Accurately

If this work is helpful, please consider donating or hiring me for consulting work (see more below) 

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Sensitive topic here. Came up in one of my discussion forums. I'm newer to, specifically, discussing addiction. But the concept of "disorder" across the spectrum of behavior health fields is something I've studied and written about for years. Would welcome dialogue with addiction peers (especially hearing from advocates and those failed by existing system) about this article. 

Want to put this disclaimer up front (will be repeated below in my original draft writing this)...

Disclaimer

I do not dispute nor seek to invalidate any personal experience of what helped someone. If calling something a "disorder" genuinely improved their personal quality of life, where quality is self-defined without oppressive social manipulation, then to some extent I don't care what they think. I'm excited that something worked. Any genuine success in this challenging area is win. And it's an important data point to gather and take note of. That being said, I do also think it's important to get the story as correct as possible about what science can and can't science about higher-level cognitive function.

Original Post From the Forum

Context

Another user had written that "Science has shown that opioid addiction is a disorder of brain structure".

My Reply

Depending on how one understands the term "disorder", this statement can be dangerously misleading and inaccurately understood by even savvy readers.

The fact of the matter is that science has no mechanistic explanation for higher level experiences of thoughts, emotions, and personality.     

Calling something "ordered" or "disordered" is an act with widespread ramifications and is something that can be interpreted twenty different ways if we're not careful. I've written about this quite a bit, most recently in an article about how great care needs to be taken with the use of the term "functional" in the world of disability rights. As detailed in this recent article: "most people we meet will not have the exact same concept of ostensibly clear-cut things, like animals. Their concepts might actually be radically different from each other. The research transcends semantic arguments, too. It could help track how public perceptions of major public policies evolve over time and whether there’s more alignment in concepts or less."

The article was published earlier this year by researchers at UC Berkeley, and I've been begging and pleading with them to fund a similar study on public understanding or misunderstanding of concepts relating to "disorder" and "function" in the fields of psychology, mental health, and addiction. It needs to be peer-led, and it needs to be highly aware (as studies almost never are) of ongoing ableism, racism and other bias (including values-based ideological assertions) baked into the core of our medical knowledge base.

Also, I do want to note that I don't want to dispute or invalidate any personal experience of what helped. If calling something a "disorder" genuinely improves personal quality of life, where quality is self-defined without oppressive social manipulation, then to some extent i don't care what they think. I'm happy for them and it's important data. That being said, I do also think it's important to get the story as correct as possible about what science can and can't science about higher-level cognitive function.

This additionally has ramifications for statements such as "their disorder took their life". If disorder is wholly a "brain flaw", society bears no responsibility. If disorder is, partly, sometimes, a natural reaction to external social factors, society bears huge amounts of responsibility. It's thus incredibly dangerous, oppressive, and disempowering to let society off the hook and blame everything on the faulty brain theory. We better be darn sure we're right because if you're wrong on that, you're helping enable social oppression.

Again, this isn't some binary. I'm not saying "it's all the brain" or "it's all social factors". I'm saying it's about getting the accurate observative description of the situation as correct as possible. And I'm terrified at how poorly modern behavioral health does in this regard. Would love support from some entity to give this topic the analysis it deserves. It's a crime that this topic isn't currently funded or given prominence.

This is my best attempt at exploring this with the limited resources at my disposal. 

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This article brought to you by the currently unfunded Peer Voices Network. 

Please consider donating to support this work. I am disabled, financially struggling, and am forced by existing social structures into producing content like this for free. I hope those with means and privilege will eventually shift priorities toward increased support for lived experience content generation and expertise sharing. Donations are never required and always appreciated. 

Donate Link: https://ko-fi.com/socialrealitylab

I am also available for consultation work, curriculum development, trainings, etc.. I enjoy partnering with organizations on development of more accurate understandings of social reality. 

Find us on YouTube at: https://www.youtube.com/@peervoicesnetwork

I can be reached by email at peervoicesnetwork@gmail.com

* * *

Photo by Diana Polekhina on Unsplash