Epistemic violence

Epistemic violence

Epistemic violence refers to denying a person their legitimacy as a knower, which renders the individual in question unable to have their interests count, and they feel out of existence. It arises when the hearer fails to take the words of the speaker seriously. Such an occurrence happens because the speaker holds certain prejudices against the speaker in question because they belong to a particular social group, say psychiatric consumer or survivor.

Individuals with mental disorders are susceptible to epistemic violence. The reason for this is because they are highly prevalent in negative stereotypes of mental illnesses. Consequently, a psychiatry patient could be speaking the truth about something, but the physician, in turn, rules out the patient’s credibility level and mistreats the patient. The unfair treatment makes the patient feel despised in their capacity as a giver and knower. Many people believe in stereotypes that are attached to mental disorder patients, which makes them fail to treat them properly since they do not understand their true nature. Such stereotypes include looking at ill individuals as people who are impaired cognitively, and emotionally. They are also viewed as confused people, which makes people fail to take what they say seriously. Many will tend to think that they are saying what they are speaking out of confusion and not after a session of well-thinking and reasoning.

Additionally, some people think that these patients should be socially isolated from other people in society. Thoughts and beliefs such as these see many of the patients as ending up being loners since society separates itself from them. They are believed to be abnormal, which makes people question and doubt everything they say and do. The ignorance of these people and assumptions makes them feel intimidated and stigmatized, which could worsen their conditions.