We often hear the terms “an alcoholic” or “a schizophrenic” when someone describes another person. This is referred to as “Pathology-First Language”, where a label defines an individual with a medical or psychiatric condition. Ever since the Civil Rights Era, there has been a push to change the way we talk about people with disabilities, medical conditions, or psychiatric diagnoses. Pathology-First Language puts the diagnoses before the person or uses the term as a person’s entire identity. Critics of this form of language say that it is dehumanizing, stigmatizing, and limits a person to an adjective. In response to Pathology-First Language, Identity-First Language (IFL) or Person-First Language has been used.
In IFL and Person-First Language, statements such as “a person with alcoholism” or “a person with schizophrenia” is utilized. Supporters of IFL/Person-First say that the action of putting a person before their diagnoses or condition is a form of social etiquette and does not define a person by what they may have. IFL/Person-First avoids using labels to define a person and allows us to separate a person from their condition or diagnosis. However, it is not as simple as one or the other. In some communities, a person’s diagnosis/condition is their everyday lived experience and shapes how they experience the world. Such as in with advocates in the autistic community. Some prefer “a person with autism” versus “an autistic” and vice versa. Pathology-First or Identity/Person-First Language will continue to be a topic of debate in our world, it is for those with the condition in question to decide how they would like to be described.
Anna Faffler, LPC