DEMANDS FOR RECOGNITION & THE PSYCHIATRIC USER/SURVIVOR MOVEMENT

DEMANDS FOR RECOGNITION & THE PSYCHIATRIC USER/SURVIVOR MOVEMENT Laura Guidry-Grimes, M.A. Georgetown University Philosophy Doctoral Candidate NEH Colloquium  Hood College  6 March 2014

Outline of Talk • Background on the psychiatric user/survivor (u/s) movement • Demands for recognition: institutional & interpersonal dimensions • Nancy Fraser’s status model • Peter Strawson’s reactive attitude framework • Similarities, dissimilarities with the disability rights movement (DRM) • Barriers to recognition for u/s • Not insurmountable

U/S Movement • Began in the 1970s • Inspired by other civil rights groups • Global • Thousands of members

“allow people’s experiences to become more important than the diagnoses, validate the person and their experience, and encourage the person to come up with their own answers” Celebrate ”unusual (some call them ‘spectacular’) ways of processing information and emotion” U/S Groups

“dangerous gifts needing cultivation and care, rather than diseases or disorders” U/S Groups “extreme states of consciousness”

“show that hearing voices is a normal though unusual variation in human behaviour” “the problem is not hearing voices but the inability to cope with the experience” U/S Groups

U/S Movement • Unifying goals • Right to self-definition • Increase inclusion of u/s in policy, treatment decisions • Abolish interventions that violate human rights • Eliminate stigmas & social/political/economic barriers • Rethink traditional biomedical modeling  allow for flourishing in virtue of psychiatric disability

Demands for Recognition • More than the mere acknowledgement of difference • Positive accommodations based on their own POV • Respect with restorative potential for marginalized groups • Extension of justice: • “should provide mechanisms for the effective recognition and representation of the distinct voices and perspectives of those […] that are oppressed or disadvantaged” –Iris Marion Young

Institutional Recognition • Demand for participatory parity • Misrecognition occurs when “institutionalized patterns of cultural value constitute some actors as inferior, excluded, wholly other or simply invisible, hence as less than full partners in social interaction” – Nancy Fraser • Assert freedoms to self-define, pursue distinctive conception of the good life • Requires institutional support

Interpersonal Recognition • Demand for others’ respectful stance toward their self-defined interests and needs • Reactive attitudes (RA) as part of relationships, holding each other accountable and in esteem • Diminished agency  suspend RA • Objective vs. participant vs. mixed attitudes • Is the individual entirely incapacitated? Does he/she not have ordinary interpersonal standing? • Importance of correctly identifying who deserves participant attitude

Recognition: DRM Nothing about us without us! • Disability Rights Movement • Not being reduced to impairment • Not to be treated as dysfunctional agents • Trust subjective reports of well-being • Opportunities for, uptake of self-definition • Diverse modes of being • Greater inclusion

DRM & U/S • “voices of disabled people demand recognition, and fair recognition cannot take the form of hearing but immediately discounting their position” –Sarah Goering • “no one else, no matter how well trained or qualified, can possibly have had the same experience of the onset of mental illness, the same initial contact with services, or the same journey through the mental health system” –Lynda Tait & Helen Lester

Recognition: U/S ALL THEY SEE IS THE DIAGNOSIS • Psychiatric User/Survivor Movement • Greater inclusion • Trust subjective reports of well-being • Opportunities for, uptake of self-definition • Psychiatric diversity • Not to be treated as dysfunctional agents • Often deserve participant attitude • Worry about diagnostic label stripping someone of interpersonal standing

Barriers Overcoming Recognition Barriers for U/S • Avoid blanket dismissal • Spectrum of fragmentation • Decision-specific • Agential standing • Minimally functional or autonomous? • Too fragmented? • Epistemic standing • Stigma, stereotyping • Lack of clinical insight? • Psychiatric diversity • Dubious value • Beneficence trumps • Combat misperceptions • Challenge “poor insight” labels • Identify testimonial injustice • Question why it is devalued • Raise awareness • Critically analyze traditional accounts of flourishing

Laura Guidry-Grimes lkg8@georgetown.edu Presentation available at www.lauragg.com Questions? Comments? Thank You!

DEMANDS FOR RECOGNITION & THE PSYCHIATRIC USER/SURVIVOR MOVEMENT