The term of psychiatric survivor comes from the c/s/x movement and is meant to position individuals as survivors of the psychiatric system and psychiatric industrial complex.

Psychiatric Survivor

The term psychiatric consumer originated at the 1985 Alternatives Conference and was chosen to represent individuals who receive care from mental health and psychiatric services. It was chosen in part because it was meant to signify that patients have, or ideally should have, a choice of services and treatment.

Psychiatric Consumer

Price discusses that even though mental disability was broadly defined at the start of the survey to encompass individuals regardless of if they identified with the term disabled some participants took issue with questions that used the term mental disability and some participants noted that this usage of terminology impacted how they answered the questions.

Troubles with Language Choices

In this study - in particular the initial survey portion- being a person with mental disability was defined as someone who has received mental health care and/or a mental health diagnosis. Participants did not have to identify as disabled to participate in the survey and participants were informed that they could otherwise identify with terms like mental-health services consumer, a psychiatric survivor, a person with mental illness, a psychocrip, or as someone with their particular diagnosis. 

Price notes that troubles arose when there were differences in how participants self identified and the range of possible terms Price used, or when a participant's definition of a term was different than Price's definition.

Language and Interdependent Accessible Research Practices

The initial survey for the Disabled Academics Study (DAS) only included participants with what Price classifies as "mental disabilities," whereas the interviews included participants with a wide range of disabilities.

Including Multiple Types of Disabilities in DAS

The term psychocrip seems to have originated with Ephemeral Theory Collective member James Overboe who collaborated with Richard Ingram on a series of workshops entitled PsychoCrips the point of the workshop was to draw attention to the commonalities in experiences between those who have experienced disabling effects of psychiatric treatment and those who have experienced the traumatizing effects of medicalizing disability. The term was turned into an identity term - similar to the reclaiming of crip - by Erick Fabris who used the term to reclaim crip for individuals historically described by the word crip but who also identify with identities of madness and psychiatric survivorship. 

Psychocrip

Price, M. (2024). Crip Spacetime. Duke University Press.

Crip Spacetime

Person with Mental Disability

A call for participants was sent out once the survey closed. Over 100 people responded to the call for interviews, and 38 interviews were completed. Since the response to the call for interviews exceeded the capacity of the researchers, diversity sampling/maximum variable sampling was used to select interviewees.

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