 Hi everyone this is Professor Howard. I wanted to take just a moment to address this idea of language and identity. So when we start talking about psychological disorders it's very easy to slip into patterns of language about clients that can fall into one of two major camps. So on one hand we have this idea of identity first language. Identity first language refers to the idea that you will describe a diagnosis and then describe the person. This might be something like autistic teenager or bipolar man. In this case you see the diagnosis comes first before we include the descriptor of who it's referring to. On the other hand we also have this idea of person first language. Person first language again just flips that dynamic so that we refer first to the client and then to whatever their particular diagnosis happens to be. In the examples I just gave you we described identity first language being an autistic teen or a bipolar man. In person first language we would flip those around so that you have a teen with autism or you have a man diagnosed with bipolar disorder. And the folks who support the idea of person first language do so for a few different reasons. First there's this idea that whenever we're working with someone we're always considering the client first. So when you have person first language it's more consistent with the idea of person-centered planning. We're putting the person at the center of their treatment plan their hopes their dreams their goals their desires are considered first and we're not necessarily approaching their treatment as well this works for this diagnosis but rather given you and your unique personal circumstances your community your surroundings the things that have worked for you in the past we think that this may be the most effective form of treatment for your particular symptoms. Another reason that you'll see proponents suggesting that person first language is better is because it's deemed more respectful to the client rather than labeling them or diagnosing them or leading with their diagnosis and considering that being the most important quality about them you're leading with the idea that they are really a person first and then everything else falls later. What may be conceptually the most important factor for person first language is this idea of linguistic determinism. Now we know in psychology that the language that we use frames our perceptions. We've talked about this previously in psychology in psychology courses when we talk about cognition but the idea that how you talk about something influences what you think about it. So even in very subtle ways if you choose just by default to use identity first language you may find that you're perceiving your clients consistently in a fashion that treats them like a diagnosis first in a person second. So those are a lot of the advantages for person first language both in practice and conceptually. Now some critics argue that well this is just you know political correctness gone wild and it really shouldn't change how we treat our clients and that's absolutely true. Sometimes you'll find that in practice this idea of the gold standard of person first language can be over applied and that's where you start getting into some pragmatic issues related to whether you choose person first or identity first language. Fundamentally what it comes down to is you should always respect your client and respect the autonomy of your client. So if you have a client who prefers identity first language if you have a person who connects with their diagnosis who consider considers it a part of their identity then choosing to use person first language could be deemed as disrespectful. Fundamentally what it comes down to is follow the lead of your client when in doubt you may default to person first language but if you discover that your client really identifies with their diagnosis for instance many people in the autistic community will consider themselves autistic first and really identify with that label. If you find that your client is identity first and prefers identity first language then that is a language that you should choose. Looking forward to hearing what you have to say and let me know if you have any questions.