“Do We Need the Abuse?”
William White’s 2006 work The Rhetoric of Recovery Advocacy: An Essay on the Power of Language is a powerful paper that suggests an essential focus for our recovery community work. He analyses the impact of the language that we apply to ourselves and that has been assigned to us by others.
Language helps to define us to ourselves, and shapes how others define us. Social policies and laws that are influenced by public perception are a result.