The phrase or term “lived experience” is everywhere. It’s become a professional profile to the point that people (myself included) have it on their LinkedIn, bios, and resumes. While I’m beyond hopeful to see lived experience expertise holistically incorporated into professionalized spaces, we need to work to ensure we are intentional and ethical in what this looks like and how we delineate experience-based expertise. 

Lived experience encompasses grief, loss, survival, navigating systems, identity-based encounters, healing, and many other aspects. The problem is that these complex and differing perspectives often get collapsed into a single narrative, that of “lived experience.” Lived experiences are anything and everything that we have gone through and usually grown from. If lived experiences are everything, how can we possibly draw impactful wisdom? We would get lost in the labyrinth of all of our lives. 

We need to name the lens, not just acknowledge “experience” when those of us with lived experience are speaking from these practiced perspectives. If we are operating from our experiences, whether as advisors, peer specialists, or consultants, we should be clear about the practiced perspectives we are drawing upon to drive our decisions. 

In workplaces, we often hear people say things like, “I’m wearing my manager hat.” People consistently clarify the professional role or expertise they are associating themselves with, and we are accustomed to this. So why do those of us operating as lived experience professionals not define the expertise we are drawing upon? 

In my work in suicide prevention, I use the term “suicide-centered lived experience.” This immediately informs people that we are talking about the topic of suicide. Even within the suicide category, there are multiple nuanced perspective categories that hold even more nuanced experiences. By using suicide-centered lived experience, it qualifies my expertise in creating clarity and a boundary of practice. This helps set expectations, define responsibilities, and avoid confusion or role-blending. People with lived experience deserve the same clarity and professional framing as others. This sets expectations both for and of us. 

When we, as lived experience professionals, fail to clarify our areas of expertise, we risk not ensuring that others understand exactly what our areas of expertise are. I’m not saying that we should tell everyone exactly what we went through (that is not everyone’s or anyone’s business), but we should provide enough context so that we can be seen as knowledgeable about what we are discussing or informing others about. 

Clarity sets an ethical standard. It allows us to grow our expertise. It sets professional boundaries. It also sets the tone that we are to be taken seriously, as experts, through our experience. It helps us be known as the experts we are.

Encourage organizations and individuals to make space for lived experience with the same nuance they expect from professionals. There are many needed perspectives across all the spaces we work and live in. We need to know whom we can turn to for the issues we find ourselves faced with, and this means we need to invite and include the right kind of expertise at the right moment for the right issues.

#ThreadsofExperience #LivedExperienceMatters #EthicalEngagement #Leadership