Invited Keynote- "Are you experienced? The use of experiential knowledge in mental health."

Mad patients have historically been excluded from knowledge production in the field of mental health. Having our faculties of ‘reason’ fundamentally challenged necessarily placed us outside arena where knowledge about mental health problems was produced. However recent years have seen a move towards valuing ‘experiential knowledge’ based on the work of people who have used psychiatric services. At a research, policy and practice level there is now a need to include experiential knowledge forms. This has led to some important advances in mental health but has come at a cost to many who have been asked to use and share their experience of often private and painful events. Coming from a trauma survivor perspective, I am interested in thinking about how this sharing of ‘experiential knowledge’ impacts on us and what happens when our experience becomes a form of commodity that can be traded, debated and even discarded. Drawing on the work of the intellectual historian Martin Jay, I will explore how philosophical interpretations of the meaning and value of ‘experience’ have changed over time. Given that there are a number of ways that we can frame ‘experience’, I will conclude by discussing what the implications might be of different interpretations for ‘experiential knowledge’ producers in mental health.