How does a 'lived experience' differ from an 'experience'?

I'm sorry for your loss. After death we have to entrust everything to the living.
I recall a song from years ago with the lines, 'Those who must remain go on living just the same.'

I suppose going to Alton Towers would be an experience. Living with depression is lived experience.

Sorry about the loss of a much loved friend.

I did not live my daughter's death but her illness and death are among my (lived) experiences insofar as I saw them happening. I wouldn't have had those experiences had I not been alive, so I suggest all experiences are lived.

I'm also 'living' the experience of the grief associated with those experiences mentioned above.

I actually think the term "lived experience" is sometimes used as a weapon to make whosoever's experience 'count' for more than someone else's. I class the expression in the same category as ones like "my truth". My truth, his truth, their truth, etc are all simply truth or not. Truth doesn't change according to who is experiencing it.

Condolences on the death of your friend, M0n.

I have issues with the expression "a way of life". We were farmers and often heard that it didn't matter if we weren't paid well because "farming isn't a job, it's a way of life".
My argument is that everybody has a "way of life" - good, bad, rich or poor. The way they live their life is their "way of life"!

Its often a term related to research....I did a research project for my Masters dissertation about the lived experiences of a specific group of patients

Saying that one did a Masters dissertation on the experience(s) of a specific group of patients would mean exactly the same thing, which illustrates the point that prefixing experience with "lived" is unnecessary. I think such terms have turned into jargon/fashion-speak perhaps in the hope of making them seem to mean more than they do.

Afraid I've always thought that lived experience and my truth were Meghan-Markle-isms. Anyway, I agree with Baggs that lived and my are superfluous.

I suppose feeling frightened after hearing of a frightening event could be called a second-hand experience but I think that's beside the point of the thread.

Sorry, MOnica, about the death of your friend.

Sorry for your loss, Monica.
I'm with Baggs on this one.!!

It dies not mean anything, just an unnecessary American expression from Meghan Markle and her ilk.

I see your point Baggs but I also agree with Louisa in that I think it has a meaning in a specific context. For example, when advertising for social work panel members, it often states something along the lines ‘professionals from different backgrounds such as medical, education, social work and those with lived experience such as care leavers. It doesn’t imply that their experience is any more valuable, but that it is as valuable, which hasn’t always been acknowledged. You could say personal rather than lived experience but either way, I think it’s an overdue inclusion of the people services usually affect.

Anyway I’ll stop waffling now.

Baggs

Saying that one did a Masters dissertation on the experience(s) of a specific group of patients would mean exactly the same thing, which illustrates the point that prefixing experience with "lived" is unnecessary. I think such terms have turned into jargon/fashion-speak perhaps in the hope of making them seem to mean more than they do.

I guess its to differentiate between a one off experience or something that's occurred over a period of time...but yes its all jargon.....every essay I've written....every power point I've put together.....every training session I've ever given....its all jargon or the phrase of the moment .....I work for the nhs...I've heard them all...and thats whats expected....and that pays my bills 🤷‍♀️

A lived experience is presumably one that the person in question has personally lived through, whereas an experience could well be something we only had heard about from the person who actually lived through it.

Personally, I find "lived experience" redundant, as "personal experience" as opposed to "experience" covers my distinction between types of experience.

Surely if I have an experience, then it is an experience I am presne t at and feel, touch, hear etc etc.

Personally I do not see how you can possibly have an experience, that you are not present at. Someone describing an experience they have had to you, is not an experience for you, it is hearing about an experience someone else has had.

This morning I had a hot bath. It was a pleasant experience and I was alive while I had it. is that an experience or a living experience?

nightowl

I see your point Baggs but I also agree with Louisa in that I think it has a meaning in a specific context. For example, when advertising for social work panel members, it often states something along the lines ‘professionals from different backgrounds such as medical, education, social work and those with lived experience such as care leavers. It doesn’t imply that their experience is any more valuable, but that it is as valuable, which hasn’t always been acknowledged. You could say personal rather than lived experience but either way, I think it’s an overdue inclusion of the people services usually affect.

Anyway I’ll stop waffling now.

I'm with nightowl on this.
My son had schizophrenia I have personal experience schizophrenia through living with my son, but he had lived experience of it.
It is jargon I suppose, but generally recognised, especially within health and social care
At least that's how I see it

In my 'lived experience' it's simply another example of how language use changes and flows, sometimes sayings bubble up for a time then are gone again.

*pandapatch, with due respect. I would say that you too had an experience of schizophrenia, but the experience of a carer/parent, while your sons experience was of someone with the illness.

LOUISA1523

Baggs

Saying that one did a Masters dissertation on the experience(s) of a specific group of patients would mean exactly the same thing, which illustrates the point that prefixing experience with "lived" is unnecessary. I think such terms have turned into jargon/fashion-speak perhaps in the hope of making them seem to mean more than they do.

I guess its to differentiate between a one off experience or something that's occurred over a period of time...but yes its all jargon.....every essay I've written....every power point I've put together.....every training session I've ever given....its all jargon or the phrase of the moment .....I work for the nhs...I've heard them all...and thats whats expected....and that pays my bills 🤷‍♀️

Chuckle! 😊

LOUISA1523

Baggs

Saying that one did a Masters dissertation on the experience(s) of a specific group of patients would mean exactly the same thing, which illustrates the point that prefixing experience with "lived" is unnecessary. I think such terms have turned into jargon/fashion-speak perhaps in the hope of making them seem to mean more than they do.

I guess its to differentiate between a one off experience or something that's occurred over a period of time...but yes its all jargon.....every essay I've written....every power point I've put together.....every training session I've ever given....its all jargon or the phrase of the moment .....I work for the nhs...I've heard them all...and thats whats expected....and that pays my bills 🤷‍♀️

Which reminds me that after a career writing copy to explain technical material to a lay audience, I went back to university to do an MA and we all had to write a preliminary essay for the staff to get a feeling for our existing knowledge of the field we would be studying.

My essay came back with only one comment 'Your sentences are too short'. or in other words the essay was easy to read and understand and academic essays are meant to hide ignorance behind long sentences and obfuscation. I ignored the comment

There is a difference, I think, and a valuable one. As a midwife, for example, I have a great deal of experience of many different pregnancies, labour, births etc. Having my own children gives me 'lived experience'.
It adds depth and colour, but doesn't cover other people's different experiences.
Distinguishing the 2 is important.

You have to be living to have an experience so "lived experience" is totally unnecessary.

I agree, AGA.

Re nannarose's comment, I'd distinguish the two experiences she is talking about with "direct" or "personal" as opposed to her professional 'indirect' experiences. All of them are ones she has "lived`'.

So yes, this is right in Pedants' Corner. But since we already had words like direct and personal to distinguish some of our lived experiences from others, using the phrase "lived experience" is superfluous and, as I suggested earlier, is sometimes used to give what we're saying a boost it doesn't really merit.

It's exactly the same if I experience it.. saying lived is obviously just a trend

Indeed, you could say 'direct' or 'personal' as opposed to 'professional'.
I used the term recently in an 'animated discussion' when one of our friends was discussing the political situation in a foreign city. I have a very good friend who lives there, and knew that for many people in this city, their everyday life did not reflect the image given to the world.
I used the term 'lived experience' of my friend as to me, that is exactly what it is. Neither does it detract from valid political concerns that she and her friends skirt around.
We also use the term sometimes at our local history group, meaning 'what people lived through' rather than 'what has been written up'. To me, it clarifies things.

To me it is a tautalogy.