Lived experience has been a growing cornerstone of psychology since its beginning, but what if you had the power of someone's lived experience in your pocket when facing your challenges?
Jimmy planned his own suicide at the age of 13 and survived by chance, but we lose more than 800.000 people on a yearly basis who are not as lucky. More than half leave us without opening up about what is making them feel hopeless.
After his lonely teenage years, Jimmy built a career in shipping and sports, only to see both identities be swept away by an accident to his back at the age of 27. This time Jimmy needed a deeper meaning to find motivation to live. After 18 months of recovery, he started exploring the world as a field worker for MSF in search of what makes us human beyond our DNA and environment. After working in several countries facing new crises, he faced the question: Why do we not naturally seek help when we are facing challenges in life?
This question led him to start interviewing people about their life’s toughest challenge, their journey and their lessons from moving beyond it. Giving life to The Human Aspect in 2016.
Today, The Life Experience Library gives you 800 people’s lived experiences digitized - accessible to everyone for free in the flick of a finger at The Human Aspect. You have diverse interviews from more than 100 countries with English as the main language, but with 20+ others to explore. The library also contains 15+ short documentaries, 200+ infographics, articles, podcasts, and much more. Available to everyone who faces their challenge alone or that are just curious to learn from others.
Jimmy shares from their journey on how they have collaborated with partners across the world to integrate and utilize DLE as a key component to increase the impact in services like peer support, social emotional learning in schools for youth (13-19 years), company wellbeing and as a reflection tool for people in therapy. The library has been used by more than 1 million people digitally in 190+ countries over the last years. Now they are ready to continue their journey to empower services and professionals with the power of digital lived experiences to redefine mental health once and for all. To make sure no one will be left facing a challenge in silence.
