Psychosocial design as lived experience reciprocity: “having your humanity recognized”

Arts-based approaches to trauma and mental distress can be transformative, connecting with communities in ways that diagnostic bio-medical models of support operating within the limitations of health care systems and services cannot. It is fundamental in fostering this type of support to understand lived experience. The Big Anxiety (TBA) festival of arts and mental health in Naarm, Australia (2022) included a two-day forum which convened a community to explore the lived experience of trauma, mental distress, marginalization, disconnection, and suicidality—using social and cultural, and art-based approaches. The interdisciplinary team, with design, research and lived experience expertise, commissioned a qualitative survey Designing-in Safety, where potential participants to the forum could share their past experiences of safety. It was an opportunity for people to reflect on what it was they needed to feel safe and supported when attending an event where personal growth and transformation might occur. We discuss how using psychoanalytically informed psychosocial design approaches enable us to listen to and learn from lived experience and inform our understanding of what is needed to create a supportive event. We suggest this act of listening can become a reciprocal validating act for those sharing their experiences.