From Patient to Panelist: A Reflection After the 2026 SPA Convention (The Society for Personality Assessment)

 From Patient to Panelist: Entering the Room

As I walked through the doors of the Sheraton Centre Toronto Hotel for the 2026 SPA Convention, I felt a quiet anticipation for what the morning would bring. I had been invited to join the LEAF Deep Dive Panel only days before, yet even as a late addition I knew I was meant to be there.

The panel focused on psychiatric assessments. It explored what it means to seek assessment, move through the process, and live with the outcome of a diagnosis.

After more than twenty years as a patient within the mental health system, I had experienced assessment, reassessment, diagnosis, and misdiagnosis. My voice had echoed through psychiatric units across Ontario. Now, as I entered the Huron Room, I stepped into a space that patients rarely access.

I carried both apprehension and purpose. I was determined to share my lived experience with clinicians, researchers, educators, and thought leaders responsible for shaping the very systems that had shaped my life. I wanted to know whether lived experience truly belonged in professional spaces.

This blog reflects on that experience. It explores what it means to move from patient to panelist, and the impact of being invited into rooms where mental health systems are discussed, evaluated, and reimagined.

Surrounded by Leaders Shaping the Mental Health System

The energy in the Huron Room was thoughtful and uncertain. There was a quiet divide between healthcare professionals and lived experience panelists. We were all there for the same reason, yet there was a sense of curiosity about what would be said and whether it would lead to meaningful change.

As each panelist shared their story, a common message emerged. The mental health system must do better when it comes to psychiatric assessments. For many of us, including myself, the assessment process shaped the course of our lives. Diagnoses determined treatment plans, medication, and long-term mental health management.

We emphasized that assessments are the first line of defence in mental health care. When done incorrectly, patients carry the consequences through misdiagnosis, ineffective treatment, and prolonged suffering.

Looking out at the audience, I could see the shift. What once may have felt routine or procedural began to take on weight. Assessments were no longer checklists. They became human experiences with lasting impact.

From Subject of Assessment to Contributor to the Conversation

After years of psychiatric assessments that often led to hospitalization, I felt a deep sense of pride standing in front of that room. For the first time, my experience was not being documented. It was being heard.

My lived experience was no longer data for observation. It became insight for change.

Moving from subject to contributor was a powerful shift. I felt seen not as a diagnosis or case history, but as a person with knowledge, perspective, and something meaningful to offer. My journey, with all its complexity, had purpose beyond survival.

Entering the Rooms: A Panelist’s Reflection on a Rare Experience

Being invited into a professional conference space like this is rare for someone with lived experience. These are rooms typically reserved for clinicians, researchers, and decision makers.

I never imagined that my mental health journey would lead me from being assessed to participating in conversations about how assessments should be done.

That access felt like a gift. What was once a system I struggled to navigate became something I could begin to understand. The walls that once felt impossible to cross were no longer barriers.

After more than fourteen psychiatric assessments, multiple hospitalizations, and experiences of restraint and isolation, standing in that room felt transformative. My voice, once confined to clinical settings, was now part of a broader conversation.

Sharing my story allowed it to become something larger than myself. It became part of a collective understanding that could shape future care.

Unrestrained: The Emotional Impact of Being Seen

During the panel, I was asked to speak about my personal experience with psychiatric assessments.

My response was honest and deeply emotional.

I shared how most of my assessments occurred under duress. They often began with a wellness check by police, followed by apprehension, transport to hospital, and placement under observation. I described the isolation, the restraints, and the lack of autonomy that defined those experiences.

For the first time, I spoke openly about what that process felt like. Not as a clinical case, but as a human experience.

As I spoke, I felt something shift. I felt unrestrained. I was no longer being observed. I was being heard.

The tears that followed were not just about pain. They were about release. They were about finally being seen.

The Impact of Psychiatric Assessments: A Message to SPA Professionals

After years of assessments and over two decades of living with mental illness, I was still misdiagnosed for much of that time. That reality points to a larger issue within the system.

It was not until my residency at Ontario Shores Centre for Mental Health Sciences that I received what I believe to be a more accurate diagnosis. Even then, communication remained a challenge. I discovered my diagnosis through medical records rather than direct conversation.

This highlights a critical gap in mental health care. There is often a disconnect between clinicians and patients. Clinicians focus on diagnostic criteria, while patients seek understanding, clarity, and tools for living.

Resources like the DSM 5 provide diagnostic frameworks but offer little guidance on how to live with a diagnosis. Patients are left to build their own systems of care through trial, error, and personal resilience.

For me, that system includes self-advocacy, therapy, medication management, sleep hygiene, nutrition, exercise, and self-care practices such as journaling and reflection.

When patients leave the hospital, they are often given minimal guidance. Yet they are expected to navigate a complex mental health system on their own.

Diagnosis is only the beginning. It is not the end of the journey.

Final Thoughts

How Understanding Can Lead to Change: A New Sense of Possibility

After the panel ended, clinicians and attendees approached me with gratitude, curiosity, and a desire to stay connected. Some did not know what to say beyond thank you. Others expressed how impactful it was to hear lived experience directly.

One psychiatry student shared that my voice brought awareness into spaces where it is often missing.

That moment stayed with me.

Being in that room was not just about visibility. It was about contribution, connection, and reclaiming a voice in spaces that shape real lives.

My hope is that experiences like this create more opportunities for lived experience voices to be included in mental health conversations. These voices have the power to move us beyond stigma and toward meaningful change.

Being in the room did not erase my past. But it changed what felt possible for my future.