Pat Deegan talking with students at MIT.

 The measure of our technologies is the degree to which they allow people to free themselves

I think the measure of our technologies is the degree to which they allow people to free themselves.

And our the most fundamental technology is to be able to speak our world as we see it and to name our experience.

Our most fundamental technology is to be able to speak our world as we see it and to name our experience.

What oppresses is that which would speak for us and name our experience as something which we cannot even recognize anymore. 

..and what oppresses is that which would speak for us and name our experience as something I cannot even recognize anymore. And I will never call myself a schizophrenic .

That is a horrifying term – it’s not a clinical dignosis it’s a condemnation of our humanity.

And the things that have been done  in name of healthcare for people who have been given this diagnosis are just extraordinary: in the 1940s they were killing people by refrigeration therapy in the name of healing schizophrenia.

And so, for me, the ability to say: ‘I am not, and have never been a schizophrenic and you may not call me that’  is the beginning, the first utterance of speaking: “My name is Pat”.

‘I am not, and have never been a schizophrenic and you may not call me that .
My name is Pat.’