ABSTRACT
Unemployment and underemployment of individuals with lived experience of serious mental health illnesses are endemic. The vocational capacity of these communities has been historically pathologized without accounting for the inhibitive social environments that they inhabit. Interspersed with examples from the personal narratives of one of the authors with lived experience, we emphasize career development for these communities as being contextually and situationally determined. In addition, we provide an aspirational perspective on the environmental competencies necessary for pathways to decent work among these communities. Finally, we discuss the need for an identity-first model and reconsideration of the social and structural systems within which individuals with lived experience encounter obstacles to their career development.
