Pete Sanders’ half of this shared keynote will ask whether we can allow people to live lives very different from our own without making their lives and experiences into a diagnostic category? Is distress an illness or a natural (albeit sometimes terrifying) reaction to bad things happening in life? And can some people live happy fulfilled lives living with experiences that disturb and distress the rest of society?

In the world of mental health activism, we find Mad Matters, Mad Studies, and Mad Pride – movements following in the wake of Hearing Voices Network and the Paranoia Network. They ask the question: ‘Is the struggle to demedicalise diversity in experiencing a civil rights struggle?’ Pete Sanders says ‘yes’ and invites you to join in.

As an alternative to the medical model most often used in mental health I relate to specific TA concepts to make sense of many clinical presentations such as obsessive compulsive disorder, eating disorders, post natal depression, self harm etc. Clients will often present with these symptoms and a further diagnosis of personality disorder due to their developmental and relationship issues.