We are passionate about lived experience and harnessing it to inform consultancy, research, education and training in the community.

Our approach

We are a global think tank and lived-experience–led social innovation and impact organisation. At TACFLE (The Australian Centre for Lived Experience), we reclaim the term Mad, used by us, not to diagnose, but to celebrate diversity, experience, and identity rather than deficit or illness. MAD Pride is our philosophy.

Our work is Mad-informed and grounded in Mad Studies, supporting individuals, loved ones, communities, organisations, and systemic advocacy. We centre lived-experience leadership, tailoring support to each person’s goals, strengths, hopes, dreams, and aspirations, recognising lived experience of human vulnerability as expertise.

TACFLE builds on the collective wisdom of the Mad Movement, drawing on Mad history and its impact on mental health. Our practice is guided by human rights, social justice, intersectionality, and Mad-informed frameworks.

We are peer-trained, Mad-experience-led, and Mad-Studies-informed.

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So what is MAD?

The term Mad is reclaimed by people with lived experience of madness, psychiatric diagnoses, psychosocial disability, or other non-normative ways of thinking and being.

Instead of seeing “madness” as an insult or pathology, the Mad community reclaims it as a positive, powerful identity, one that holds creativity, knowledge, and resistance.’

Mad Pride

Mad Pride is a social movement that celebrates Mad identity, challenges stigma, and insists that Mad people have the right to self-definition and to be visible.

Like Pride movements in other communities, it transforms an experience often marginalised into a source of solidarity, strength, and joy.

The International Mad Movement

The international Mad movement brings together psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors, ex-patients, refusers, and people identifying with psychosocial disability (c/s/x/m/p) across the globe.

It works to challenge medicalised and colonial approaches to mental health, advance human rights (especially through the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities), and build solidarity across Global North and South contexts.

The movement is diverse, culturally specific, and continues to grow as a global force for justice, dignity, and systemic change.

What Makes Us Different

We support anyone with a Mad experience of human vulnerability through a trained Mad Studies, Mad Informed and Peer Work practice. We want you to find your voice, your lived expertise, strengths and story. You are a superpower in your own recovery journey.

Our Values

  • Mad Informed

  • Lived Experience Led

  • Human Rights Focused

  • Socially Just

  • Co-created and community led

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 Our Founder

Matthew Jackman (They/Them)

Matthew is a gender-diverse, non-binary, award-winning international Mad activist and the 2020 recipient of the Mental Health Foundation of Australia’s National Mental Health Advocate of the Year Award. They live with Bipolar Affective Disorder and Complex PTSD, which they understand through a Mad lens as a spiritual and cultural gift. Having lost their mother to suicide and experienced intergenerational stigma, Matthew is a sibling supporter and ally to family members with enduring psychosocial diverse abilities.

A qualified social worker, Matthew is a global mental health activist advancing Mad studies, human rights, social justice, intersectionality, and lived-experience leadership. Their work challenges biomedical approaches to distress and promotes holistic alternatives to wellbeing, mobilizing Mad studies as a foundation for international lived-experience advocacy.

Matthew has represented the Western Pacific Region on the Global Mental Health Peer Network, served as a Global Shaper with the World Economic Forum, and advised the Australian Association of Social Workers. They are a Global Lived Experience Ambassador for Generation Mental Health and have consulted for the World Health Organization, CBM International, Yale, Harvard, and peer services in the United States.

Proudly Mad, neurodivergent, and queer, Matthew uses their lived experience, power, and privilege to amplify silenced voices, challenge oppressive systems, and create space for transformative recovery through vulnerability, resistance, and collective action.

Qualifications

  • Bachelor of Social Work (Honours) - Monash University (2011-2014)

  • Masters of Advanced Social Work - University of Melbourne (2019-2022)

  • Masters of Mad Studies 2022 - Queen Margaret University (Ongoing)

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  • From Madness to International Mad Activism

    by Jackman, M. (2025). From Madness to International Mad Activism.: My Madness is a politically responsive coping mechanism to an unjust world, and at times a superpower

    Read More

  • Meaningful engagement with LGBTQI+ lived expertise can reduce inequity in mental healthcare

    By Matthew Jackman on The British Medical Journal (BMJ)

    Read More

  • Mad Studies, Mad-Affirming, and Anti-sanist Critical Social Work Theory and Practice

    By Jackman, M., Zagler, J., Downs, N., Macintosh, J. (2025). Mad Studies, Mad-Affirming, and Anti-sanist Critical Social Work Theory and Practice.

    Read More

 Awards

  • Logo of Mental Health Foundation Australia, featuring a human figure with arms raised, an outline of Australia in yellow, and blue text.

    National Mental Health Advocate 2020

    Foundation for Mental Health in Australia

  • People for Purpose logo with a stylized teal 'P' and leaf design, and the company name in dark blue text.

    Social Impact Graduate 2020

    People for Purpose

  • Text reading 'LEADERSHIP VICTORIA' in blue letters on a white background.

    LGBTIQ+ Leader Participant 2020

    Leadership Victoria

  • Victoria University logo with text Melbourne Australia and a blue diamond shape graphic.

    Codesign Bachelor of Social Work Health and Mental health curriculum in Mad Studies/Lived Experience Perspective 2020

    Victoria University

  • Deloitte logo with black text and a small green dot at the end on a white background.

    Outstanding 50 LGBTIQ+ Leaders 2020

    Deloitte Australia

Multi stakeholders hearing on the prevention and control of noncommunicable diseases (NCD) and the promotion of mental health and well-being

United Nations

Lived experience movements in mental health.

What are the consumer, survivor, ex-patient and inmate, and Mad movement aims, goals and outcomes?

See full event recording: Visit Here

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In loving memory of my mother Samantha Maree O'Connell who lost her battle with mental health. This space is dedicated to supporting us to find our meaning, purpose and hope in recovery.

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