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amber22
Peer Support Worker

Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Hey everyone!

 

On Thursday 6th of April 2023, we will be holding a Peer Group Chat on the topic of Labels & Language.

 

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Language in relation to the mental health issues we live with may take the form of a diagnostic label. Whether it’s a label of another term used, language and labels are an important component of how we refer to ourselves and how others refer to us. Let’s come together and discuss how we use language and how we prefer language to be used.   

 

The event start times across Australia are below:

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Western Australia: 5pm 
Northern Territory & South Australia: 6:30pm 

Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria & Tasmania: 7pm

 

For anyone unfamiliar with Peer Group Chats, each focuses on a specific topic and is guided by Peer Workers with lived experience of mental health issues and recovery, &/or caring for someone with complex mental health. A counsellor is also present as a moderator to help ensure a safe environment for individuals and the group. It is a space for us as peers to share our stories and experiences, and connect with those who are going through something similar. 

 

Anyone is welcome to join! Tagging some members who may be interested below:

 @CatMom  @Snowie @Shaz51 @Captain24 @Laura4 @creative_writer @Adge @Jacques @tonys @CatMom @Bobbie @sammy3 @justanotherguy @Owlunar @tonys @Shaz51 @creative_writer @Laura4 @mamabear88 @Jacques @Sophia1 @NatureLover @Appleblossom @Dimity  @LeChuck @StuF @Smiling_Gecko @sammy3 @BlueBay @wellwellwellnez

 

Peer Group Chats are hosted outside of the forums, using a platform called Chatwee. 

To join an Online Peer Group and participate, you will need to register for an account with Chatwee.
To access the group to observe only and not participate, you can access Chatwee as a Guest.
On the night, follow this link to access Chatwee before the group starts.
You can join our Peer Group Chats every Thursday from 7:00-8:30pm (AEDT). Check out the FAQs page for more information.  

 

 

We hope to see you there 😊 If you can't make it but are interested, you can always catch up reading the transcript afterwards here. We also invite you to continue the conversation below on this thread if you can't make the night but also wish to contribute some of your responses. We will post some dot point prompts on the day that can get the conversation started if you're unable to make the live event!

12 REPLIES 12

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Hi Everyone, 

Just a reminder that the next Online Peer Group Chat on Labels & Language will take place tonight from 7-8:30pm AEST.  As always, for ease of reference, times across Australia are in the graphic and listed below: 

 

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Western Australia: 5pm 
Northern Territory & South Australia: 6:30pm 

Queensland, New South Wales, Australian Capital Territory, Victoria & Tasmania: 7pm 

 

Tonight, you can expect discussion about

  • The meaning and importance of labels and language for each of us individually 
  •  The role of labels and language in shaping identity and it’s impacts 
  •  Incorrect or misuse of labels and language, and how it could be improved or addressed 

 

Tagging members who have supported or otherwise interacted with the thread so far as well as those who may be interested to receive a reminder: @Shaz51 @Captain24 @Jacques @Birdofparadise8 @7cough9 @chibam @Bobbie @Former-Member @Appleblossom @Snowie 

 

Hope you can make it. To join us, head here. Otherwise, if you're not able to attend live tonight or you don't make it in the end, we'd still love to hear your thoughts on the topic! Feel free to share anything you'd like (within guidelines of course!) here in this thread using the dot points above as guiding prompts if you'd like/ would find that helpful 😊

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

sounds good @TideisTurning , @amber22 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Hi Everyone! 

 

Just a reminder that the Peer Group Chat on Labels & Language will be starting in 20 minutes!

 

Tagging members who have supported or otherwise interacted with the thread so far as well as those who may be interested to receive a reminder: @Shaz51 @Snowie @Appleblossom @Captain24 @Jacques @Owlunar @Laura4 @sammy3 @Bobbie @wellwellwellnez @Hamsolo01 @chibam + anyone else that wants to join!

 

We hope you can make it! To join us, head here, or, for those interested but unable to join live, a transcript will be made available after the event here. Feel free to continue the conversation below on this thread too 🙂 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Hi! Happy long weekend (and Easter)

 

Can you pl publish some of the previous peer group chat transcripts? Keen to read ones I didn’t attend.

 

Thanks

sammy3

 

 

 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Thanks for your enquiry and interest in past Peer Group Chats @Former-Member! We’ll look into this further around transcripts, but in the meantime I’d encourage you to look at some of the more recent Forums threads such as this one as discussions have continued there about the varying topics more recently following the Peer Group Chat events themselves. I also want to encourage you to contribute your own thoughts and/or ideas to and/or engage with any you’re interested in and would like to.

 

Speaking of extra thoughts/ ideas/ contributions, I have a few of my own to share around labels and language. I am reminded of a concept known as ‘social constructionism’, which explores the meanings and connotations given to certain things (more on social constructionism here for anyone interested). A label is just that. What makes it good or bad, what influences it’s impacts, are in part determined by the way it is socially constructed, something which can, and does, change.

Furthermore, the way a label is constructed is going to have an effect on how it is received- by the person who may have the label assigned to them and by others around them. Both of these will likely affect the other- i.e. the response of other people will influence an individual’s relationship with or feelings about a label and language in relation to themselves, impacting what label (if any) and/ or language they use and how it is communicated to others, which can then effect the other's response, and so the cycle continues.

 

I suppose another important point from this is the power of words and how much they matter.

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As something else to ponder on this, you may like to consider this example of trying to integrate multiple cultural identities into your own identity/ who you are and the role of language in that.

 

Keen to hear others’ thoughts/ ideas/ contributions, either about what I’ve shared and/or your own about the topic of labels and language 😊 @Former-Member @Shaz51 @tonys @Captain24 @Snowie @FloatingFeather @Appleblossom 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

@TideisTurning 

My thoughts about labels and language are all over this forum.  As a kid I did not speak a lot, but having 4 years study in language at top uni as a young person, which did not lead to a fancy income....lol... $30 per week plus $75 per hour on casual rate, and having survived and worked since 1973 in many different fields, from manual to professional and charitable, I guess I did feel my thoughts worth sharing ... at least for free ...

 

I have taught ages 3 - 73 privately.

 

I withdrew from 2 courses recently (in last 2 years: Dip Comm Services and Masters in Disability) as I did not like their approach or style of making assertions and then saying they are hard truth ... as opposed to a proposition.  I felt I had to push their barrow and did not feel it was worth my HECS debt to compromise myself or leave potential debt to children.  It was good to get back into tertiary study and have a look around at how it is done now, but too much is constrained by online and so called "standards" which I have not witnessed being very good in action ... eg with my son .... hmmmm.

 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

@TideisTurning .    thanks for sending me this.    another head scratcher. . . 

You do realize I never went to school,   will have to walk around this object a few times and try to figure out what it is...      Your link talks about brute facts. . .

 

 I will say at this late  stage of life,  I'm  a brute facts person,   If I search for an understanding to 

something with the few basic laws off science maths and physics that I have in the few books I have,  I can replicate the experiments and see  proof that they are in fact evidence based. 

A feather and a brick fall at the same velocity in a vacuum.  Gravity. . . 

 

Thats why I'm  vaccinated.   If  I go looking for the answer with preconceived notions,  well 

i can find any answer that suits my purpose on the Internet.   But the above is stating the obvious isn't  it  

As for culture and beliefs.   From an Autistic person like me.    I don't care.  Black ....  white..

Someone one or something,  is either a direct threat to me,   or it is not.  I live in a very right wing

intolerant,  all vanilla community.    It frequently threatens me. 

 When I go to the cultural centre of a city,  or some of the commune,  hippy based towns in these hills,  no one bothers me.  I  blend right in.

 

I think people are threatened by fact and truth if it is at odds with their own pre conceived ideas.  . . .  or inherently selfish instincts.  And people are inherently selfish.  Its instinct.

 

Some brute facts.    the bulk of the worlds forests will be gone in the next 2 decades.

                                There is no place on earth that is not polluted with micro plastics

                                 Vast areas of the oceans are fished out.

                                 plant based meat products also require massive land clearing too

                                 100 species become extinct every day.

                                  Competition for water,  land,  energy,  is escalating.

                                  acidification of ocean water thinning the exoskeletons of the

                                  krill which is the start of the marine food chain

 

      and on an on  the list grows,  and I wont mention climate change. . .  Just the bruit facts that are instantly measurable to anyone with a PH metre, eyes ,  and a microscope.

 

I propose that people are uncomfortable with facing bruit facts, because they are at odds

with what we like to think of as a complete,  fulfilled and happy life.  Do I care.  No

I lived my life.     I cant stop human instinct and behaviour.    This is just scientific observation of brute facts.  But people will shift uncomfortably and think its all personal  etc  etc

 

Lets do an experiment to test my theory.   I propose that we have already exceeded the population threshold of the planet.  Improvements in medicine mean people will live much longer, and with predicted further increases in population,  we will experience a tipping point

that will lead to unimaginable outcomes.   

I propose that facing this "bruit"  fact and applying  serious thinking about our instinct to reproduce  with out thought of the consequences,  is so uncomfortable to the majority

of people that not one person will be comfortable with this post.

 

The labels we give each other.      Divisive politics,  and words.  We apply our thinking to support and elevate our own goals and find our place in the  pack. . . .  Give to charity,  then cheat on our taxes. . . Go  to church . .  . . .  then  buy a slave labour built phone every 2 years.   so sorry folks.  thats how animals would look at us and view our spiecies.

 

I do hope others will post answers to @TideisTurning  Ideas.

I do have a brain injury and autism,  and miss the flavour of a topic very easily.  I do strive to understand how humans thinks and justify their actions and thoughts.

 

Very best wishes  t mb 1

 

This post was actually composed by the koalas in the 900 hectares of forest due to be 

bulldozed  down the road for golf course and housing.   WE all gotta live somewhere

hey.  .  .    

 

 

    

 

 

 

 

                                   

                            

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

I feel like labels can be a double edge sword @TideisTurning - whilst I can see they maybe useful if describing things in kind of a sub-group way such as `doctor' or `award winner', as a way to convey a meaning and an ideal of something I think they can also be harmful. For instance, I use to volunteer with an organisation that worked with the juvenile court system. The court list never identified the youth offender by name because studies have shown that labelling a young person in criminal situations can have negative detrimental affects. 

For example, having a label as a juvenile such as a  drug dealer, thief, vandal etc is often how society perceives that person (as a preconceived notion). Being labeled in such a way can have a negative impact on their future (such as getting jobs, buying houses, buying cars, etc). According to the Australian Institute of Criminology most youth offenders grow out of offending and go on to be law abiding citizens hence why they don't name young offenders to try an avoid labels. 

 

Re: Peer Group Chat // Labels & Language // Thursday 6th April 2023, 7-8:30PM AEDT

Hi Everyone, 

There's some really interesting and thought provoking ideas here! 

Firstly, the idea of what some might call ‘binary thinking’ (i.e. Ideas that might be rather black and white) that you've provided an example of, @Appleblossom. I feel like this can happen when language evolves and someone struggles in terms or new/ updated expectations of language. Another example of this might be with something like pronouns, which have expanded to be more inclusive of gender diverse folks, whose identity may be non-binary (it’s even right there in the name!) or fluid. She, nor he, fit for some of these individuals, and so the definition of ‘they’ has updated to refer to a singular person in this way. There are many who struggle to understand and accept that, and this thinking can be quite rigid, in terms of the insistence of the hard truth as they understand it, the preconceived notion, as you said @tonys, rather than a proposition to ponder, as you’ve so articulately said, Apple. T, your observation of people's discomfort with ideas that are at odds is a really astute one here!

 

All this to say, I myself consider individuals being able to determine the labels and language that fit for them, with the understanding this may change, is vital. Also that these labels (or lack thereof) and language are respected by others around them. @tonys, you illustrated a few examples wonderfully 😊- in your post, you referred to yourself as an autistic person, which provides us with an example of identity first language, and later, you spoke about having a brain injury, an example of person first language.

 

Another excellent point, @FloatingFeather around the potential for labels to be helpful and/ or harmful. I feel like that’s part of the reason it’s important that someone’s choice of language and labels, particularly in reference to themselves, is respected.

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