<p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">The Power Threat Meaning Framework is a new perspective on why people sometimes experience a whole range of forms of distress, confusion, fear, despair, and troubled or troubling behaviour. It is an alternative to the more traditional models based on psychiatric diagnosis. It was co-produced with service users and applies not just to people who have been in contact with the mental health or criminal justice systems, but to all of us. The Framework summarises and integrates a great deal of evidence about the role of various kinds of power in people's lives; the kinds of threat that misuses of power pose to us; and the ways we have learned as human beings to respond to threat. In traditional mental health practice, these threat responses are sometimes called 'symptoms'. The Framework also looks at how we make sense of these difficult experiences, and how messages from wider society can increase our feelings of shame, self-blame, isolation, fear and guilt. The main aspects of the Framework are summarised in these questions, which can apply to individuals, families or social groups: </span></p><ul><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">'What has happened to you?' (How is </span><strong style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Power</strong><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> operating in your life?) </span></li><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">'How did it affect you?' (What kind of </span><strong style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Threats</strong><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> does this pose?) </span></li><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">'What sense did you make of it?' (What is the </span><strong style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Meaning</strong><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> of these situations and experiences to you?) </span></li><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">'What did you have to do to survive?' (What kinds of </span><strong style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Threat Response</strong><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> are you using?) </span></li></ul><p><br></p><p><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">In addition, the two questions below help us to think about what skills and resources people might have, and how we might pull all these ideas and responses together into a personal narrative or story: </span></p><ul><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> 'What are your strengths?' (What access to </span><strong style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">Power resources </strong><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)">do you have?) </span></li><li><span style="color: rgba(0, 0, 0, 1)"> 'What is your story?' (How does all this fit together?)</span></li></ul>