Professionalism as Protection
- lucywishart7
- Dec 24, 2025
- 1 min read
Read the full article on Substack:
There’s a quiet distortion in the mental health system that often goes unnamed.
Professionalism has become a form of protection — not for the people seeking support, but for those delivering it.
Over time, the clinical frame trains people to manage risk rather than meet reality. Language becomes careful. Presence becomes filtered. Humanity is translated into roles, notes, and protocols.
For those with lived experience, this isn’t subtle. We can feel when someone is present — and when they’re hiding behind professionalism. What’s called “boundaries” often lands as absence.
This isn’t because professionals don’t care. It’s because the system teaches them that being real is dangerous.
But care without realness doesn’t feel safe.
It feels managed.
And many of us aren’t asking for less professionalism — we’re asking for more humanity.
We’re not here to be managed.
We’re here to be met.
Hmmm. I think this is onto something really important. Arguably, it's one of the reasons why lived expertise is being welcomed into the system more and more; to offer something different. It's highlighting where in the system things need to change. Risk thresholds are being questioned and challenged as people begin to understand that mental distress is something that's normal and doesn't always need to be controlled or quashed. In fact, when it is, arguably it will find other ways out. Understanding when to just sit with someone in that distress so they don't also have to be made to feel alone, isolated and dangerous. It's a hard call at times, but lived expertise is shining a light on ho…