Dialogue with others

Before engaging with the content of the responses from Carroll (2016) and Francis (2016), I want to acknowledge what a pleasure it is to be in dialogue with others who are engaged both politically and intellectually in this domain. I understand robust dialogue to be part of what is needed to humanize our collective responses to emotional distress (and related experiences), beyond benevolent othering. Dialogic spaces—in which dialogue is generated and encouraged, and otherness is respected, without conditions (Seikkula & Arnkil, 2014, p. 7)—offer an alternative beyond benevolent othering. Examples of such spaces include the international Hearing Voices Movement (Dillon & Hornstein, 2013), Open Dialogue (Seikkula & Arnkil, 2014), and Intentional Peer Support (Mead, 2014), among others. In each of these approaches, structures are created so that people can express their thinking and experiences, in responsive dialogue with others, “in a process that is not built on strategic interventions aimed at changing others” (Seikkula & Arnkil, 2014, p. 13, emphasis in original).

Benevolence, Welfare, and Beyond

Carroll’s application of the concept of benevolent othering to UK welfare policies was simultaneously exciting and depressing to read—exciting for me, as a researcher, to see these ideas resonate in another context, beyond those I am exploring in my own research, but depressing about the punitive nature of contemporary UK ‘welfare’ environment. The conditionality of the line between benevolence (including the rhetorical stance that the welfare system is there to support people in need) and hostility (denying people benefits, denying disability, and constructing any barriers that people experience as personal failings) is particularly stark in this context. Carroll gives the example of eligibility for benefits being contingent on having an “employability mindset,” which includes a “positive affect” (a particular irony for those who struggle specifically with a mood disorder): One must have the right attitude to be deemed worthy of support (2016). Her analysis of job-seekers who ‘lack motivation’ being sent to (unpaid) Community Work Placements—part of the UK Government’s euphemistically named “Help to Work” measures—brought to my mind the German expression Arbeit Macht Frei (“work makes you free”).¹ This phrase so aptly captures the abhorrence of combining a rhetorical stance that involuntary work is ‘therapeutic,’ with a fundamental discounting of the lives of unemployed people, deemed ‘useless’ or ‘wasted’ (Bauman, 2003).

Stigmaphilia, Stigmaphobia, and Beyond

It seems, from Francis’ response, that my initial article may have given the impression that stigmaphilia and stigmaphobia are the only two possible responses to stigmatization and I am grateful for the opportunity to clarify my thinking. Voice hearing framed as a common, human experience is one example of an alternative; ambivalence is another (e.g., Jeffs, 2012). The thought experiment in my initial article, in which I imagined texts including unsanitized images of diversity, was intended to explore the limits of inclusion within benevolent othering. Perhaps some example texts from my research outside of the mental health terrain may clarify what I was hoping to explore.

One poster, for the Australian Muslim Women’s Centre for Human Rights (AMWCHR), juxtaposes six head shots of women: Four of the women have various head-coverings, including hijab and niqab, while two women have their heads uncovered.² The images are accompanied by the question, “Are we all equal in your eyes?” Like the Mind billboards, this poster could be read as advertising for the AMWCHR and/or as an antistigma and discrimination text. However, unlike Mind, AMWCHR chose to include images that may confront viewers—either those who object to the niqab (e.g., in many European countries the niqab is the subject of intense political debate and bans), or those (including Muslim women themselves) who have strong beliefs about other forms of veiling (or non-veiling). The AMWCHR’s motto boldly refuses conditional acceptance: “Equality without exception.”

Another text, a postcard produced by Y-GLAM, a performing arts project for gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender and same-sex attracted young people, juxtaposes four images: 1) a smiling little girl, labeled ‘Ella is brunette,’ 2) a teenager wearing a fluffy-collared jacket—‘Kendra is gay,’ 3) a smiling, middle...