A.P. Spoth, MSW, LCSW

A.P. Spoth, MSW, LCSW is a PhD candidate in Social Work and Social Research at Portland State University. They earned their MSW from the University of Vermont in 2016, and their BA in Music from Buffalo State College in 2013. As a practitioner, A.P.’s work has focused on supporting individuals who have experienced complex trauma, with a particular focus on interpersonal and developmental trauma. Prior to becoming a clinician, A.P. worked as a peer support specialist in a residential setting that employed a non-pathologizing, community-oriented approach to healing from extreme experiences, or experiences more typically understood as ’severe and persistent mental illness.’

A.P.’s research works to problematize taken-for-granted norms about social work as a field, clinical social work practice, and who social workers are. Working at the intersection of Mad studies, trans studies, and abolitionist thinking, they are particularly interested in the concept and embodied reality of ‘lived experience,’ and how Eurocentricity, cisheteropatriachy, and professionalization shape our understanding of ‘lived experience’ in social work theory, education, and practice. Their dissertation focuses on the lived experience of transgender and nonbinary social workers as a potential starting point for beginning to understand the experiences of social workers with ‘lived experience.’