Abstract

This paper explores the implications that arise when those of us with experiences of distress/mental health system encounters deploy lived experience as expertise to produce research. In recent years, some mental health service and research systems have conceded to disability rights demands of ‘nothing about us without us,’ and slowly, select people with direct contact with psychiatric systems and experiences of distress have been incorporated as experts by experience into mental health assemblages. In my own professional encounters, I have largely benefited from these inclusive, participatory, and diversity-oriented best practices: using my experiences of distress, psychiatric encounters...