A Place to Begin — Opening Reflections

Our focus is simple: How do we meet one another as human beings moving through challenges rather than as problems to solve? What becomes possible when relational presence, compassion, and mutual trust and belief guide the conversation instead of categories and interventions?

And what happens when consumers construct what they want and how to achieve it—rather than being defined, constrained, or directed by psychiatric disorders and the systems built around them?

What steps are needed to begin this shift—for practitioners, advocates, and consumers?

What happens when the path is not always taught in graduate schools, not supported in traditional programs, and not reflected in systems organized around diagnosis, compliance, and intervention?

How do practitioners rediscover their original mission of accompanying human beings—rather than managing symptoms? And how do consumers create pathways that align with their ethics, dignity, and core values without fear of being dismissed, punished, or pathologized?

These are no small questions. Yet in our work, we have witnessed several openings that make this shift possible.

---

Dear Colleagues, Friends, and Advocates,

We invite you to our next gathering in the Humanizing Ourselves for the Other series—an ongoing international conversation among practitioners, advocates, families, and individuals with lived experience who seek ways of accompanying suffering that honor dignity rather than diagnosis.

This Year’s New Theme

Humanizing Ourselves for the Other:

Honoring the human moment—beyond rigid paradigms and the challenges of psychiatry.

This conference takes a step forward: How do we navigate together—as clinicians, advocates, and consumers—when we move beyond pathologizing understandings and instead meet one another through presence, compassion, and mutual belief?

Our work continues to demonstrate that when people are believed in and supported in their voice and agency, strength-based, personalized dialogue reduces distress, restores identity, and promotes thriving—without conventional interventions. At its heart, this work is a celebration of what is possible in each of us, rather than a search for what is wrong.

---

Healing Emerges in Relationship

Healing emerges in relationship when the other is not positioned as a problem to be fixed but as a person to be met. In such encounters—what we call humanizing relationships—the focus shifts from controlling distress to understanding how a person’s struggle is tied to meaning, history, trauma, context, and relationships.

In this stance:

• the practitioner is not an expert applying interventions

• the person is not a subject to be treated

• the conversation becomes a shared ethical act

When relationships are not organized around diagnosis or intervention, but around recognition, presence, and shared meaning, people are no longer treated as cases to resolve but as human beings whose suffering makes sense within the context of their lives.

Dialogue becomes a co-created space of possibility—where agency is restored, dignity reclaimed, and identity is no longer swallowed by pathology. Distress is not an individual disorder but a meaningful response to lived experience. When people are understood rather than categorized, what were once labeled “symptoms” often soften and evolve into shared understanding and transformation.

Fear decreases, grief subsides, connection deepens, and hope becomes possible again.

Healing is not the outcome of treatment—it is the outcome of being human together.

What We Will Explore Together

We will use this time to explore how practitioners and individuals with lived experience can co-create these humanizing relationships—moving beyond systems that categorize and toward conversations that invite meaning, dignity, and belonging.

Together, we will reflect on:

• What practitioners can do to humanize themselves—listening without assumption, sharing power, and entering dialogue as co-learners rather than experts

• How consumers can protect their voice and identity in systems that label, silence, or define them by diagnosis

• How to navigate spaces where pathology is the default lens and instead create relational contexts where healing unfolds through presence, not treatment plans

This gathering is not about techniques or treatment—it is about accompanying one another in ways that restore identity, possibility, and community.

Stories of Courage and Change

We continue to highlight the voices shared across our work—stories where people reclaimed their identities not through treatment plans, but through conversations grounded in dignity, connection, and mutuality.

A young person long told she would “never function independently” began to rebuild her life when someone finally asked what happened and what do you want rather than “what is wrong with you.” In dialogue, her distress made sense in the context of trauma and disconnection—and identity replaced pathology.

A family once described as “difficult and non-compliant” found connection when conversations shifted from behavior management to shared meaning-making. When understood relationally, conflict softened and new forms of safety, communication, and hope emerged. It is possible for recidivism to stop.

Practitioners describe that when they humanize themselves and step out of expert roles, their work becomes more relational and less performative. Humanizing themselves allows them to step out of positions that demand certainty and into relationships where healing unfolds in both directions.

People grow when they are met—not managed.

Suffering makes sense when heard in context.

Relationships restore identity and belonging.

These stories remind us that people are not broken—they are human, capable, and worthy of connection.

Support This Work

This gathering—like all NISAPI events—is made possible through the generosity of those who believe in relational, non-coercive, non-diagnostic alternatives to conventional psychiatric approaches.

Your contributions support:

• Access for consumers and families

• Scholarships for students

• Continued development of relational-dialogical training

• International dialogues and collaborative initiatives grounded in Process Ethics

• Support for people emerging from hospitalization, forced treatment, or long-term diagnostic identities

Your support strengthens this work and expands what is possible.

Metalogos Issue 48 — Access and Subscription Update

We appreciate the significant interest in our two-part article published in Metalogos Issue 48. Many colleagues, students, and consumers have asked how to access the material.

In alignment with the journal’s policy, we will post read-only copies on the Now I See A Person Institute website one month after publication. This allows readers to study the articles while respecting distribution guidelines, and provides access for those—especially students and consumers—who may not be able to purchase individual issues.

We also encourage subscriptions to Metalogos, which continues to publish rigorous relational and dialogical scholarship. Annual rates (€30 individual; €130 institutional) remain accessible and support the ongoing work of the journal’s global contributors.