When one identifies as a “Chronic Mental Health Client” or “Professional Patient,” as I did, one is encased in an internalized stereotype of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. I may still fit your definition of chronic client. At the same time I am much more than that and not that at all. I am more complex, more full, more skilled, more capable, more involved, more diverse, more powerful. I have a greater range of thoughts, feelings and behaviors than any of the textbooks, teachers, or mental health staff ever gave me credit for.

We may still be classified be the system as “chronic clients.” But we are no longer allowing that stereotyped notion of thoughts, feelings and behaviors to inhibit our being as fully alive as possible.

Lynne Stewart

Los Angeles 1980