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Reality Mapping
Structured methods for separating observations, interpretations, hypotheses, assumptions and evidence when trying to understand complex experiences.
Reality Mapping · Evidence · Dialogue · Understanding
Put Reality First.
RealityFirst is an initiative that is exploring how people (including - those with psychosis-spectrum disorders and others with different or without diagnoses) understand, interpret and communicate reality. Particularly when experiences are complex, ambiguous or contested.
RealityFirst begins with a simple principle: understanding should come before certainty.
Human beings do not experience the world as passive observers. We interpret events through language, memory, relationships, context, expectations and the information available to us.
When those sources of information become incomplete, conflicting or difficult to interpret, understanding reality can become much harder.
RealityFirst explores tools and frameworks that encourage curiosity, evidence gathering, dialogue, uncertainty management and respectful examination of competing explanations.
What we explore
RealityFirst brings together ideas from Psychology, Philosophy - including Hermeneutics + Epistemology + Testimonials, Communication, Intelligence Analysis and Systems Thinking.
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Epistemic Justice
Exploring testimonial and hermeneutical injustice and how people can be disadvantaged when their experiences are difficult to explain, understand or communicate.
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Communication
Examining literal, figurative, contextual and indirect communication and how ambiguity can influence our interpretation of social situations.
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Psychosocial Understanding
Investigating the relationship between uncertainty, stress, social environments, interpretation and unusual or distressing experiences.
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Critical Thinking
Learning how to compare competing explanations, identify cognitive biases and update beliefs as new information becomes available.
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Open Dialogue
Encouraging conversations where different interpretations can be explored without requiring immediate agreement about what an experience means.
Our Mission
To support people whose experiences of reality have been misunderstood, dismissed, or harmed by diagnostic shortcuts, by helping them examine meaning, interpretation, and logic without erasing their lived experience.
We exist to restore epistemic dignity — the right to be taken seriously as a reasoning human being — while promoting safety, humility, and multiple possible explanations for complex mental experiences.
We do not define reality for people.
We help people reason within uncertainty.
Our principles
RealityFirst is built around a small number of principles for examining difficult questions.
Evidence before certainty
Confidence should reflect the quality and quantity of available
evidence.
Interpretations are not observations
Separating what happened from what we think it means can reveal
alternative explanations.
Uncertainty is legitimate
Sometimes the most accurate answer is that there is not yet enough
information to know.
People deserve to be heard
Listening seriously to someone's experience does not require
automatically accepting or rejecting their interpretation.
RealityFirst Learning
Explore the RealityFirst Learning Experience Platform (LXP)
Our Learning Experience Platform (LXP) provides structured courses, educational material, exercises and frameworks covering Reality Mapping, Critical Thinking, Epistemic Justice, Communication and related topics.
Reality Mapper App
Check out our "Reality Mapper" App
Our Reality Mapper App helps you define your fixed beliefs (we believe the word "delusion" is biased), the events you have observed that feel relevant, how you interpret those events, and then how those interpretations change the probability or likelihood of your fixed beliefs.
Support RealityFirst
Help us build RealityFirst.
Donations help support educational resources, research, technology and the continued development of RealityFirst. We make our resources available to you at no cost. We simply ask that, if you find any of the resources useful, then that you make a donation to us.
Become a supporter
Make a recurring contribution and help support RealityFirst over the longer term. You can choose any increment of $10 that you would like.
Donate Monthly
Contact
Get in touch with RealityFirst.
Have a question, suggestion, collaboration idea or want to learn more about RealityFirst? Send us a message.
We welcome thoughtful conversations about our educational work, Reality Mapping, research, learning resources and the broader RealityFirst project.
Better understanding starts with better questions.
Explore RealityFirst resources and learn practical approaches for reasoning about evidence, uncertainty, interpretation and reality.
Explore RealityFirst