Definition
The term complex refers to things that are puzzling and difficult to understand. There is often a lot going on. It’s a term that is used a lot in social care to describe people and their situation (‘complex cases’, ‘complex lives’, ‘complex needs’…)
The bigger picture
‘‘Complex’ is an unhelpful, lazy and meaningless term which is often used as a blanket label (‘people with complex needs’, ‘complex individuals’). It implies a person has ‘different’ needs rather than everyday human needs. It also suggests a person is ‘difficult’ and focuses on ‘problems’ with people rather than people’s gifts and potential, the support and adjustments a person requires, their rights and disabling barriers in society. It stigmatises, others and blames people and can be used when workers or organisations don’t feel comfortable or confident in supporting people (‘too complex’). It is also used as a euphemism for ‘disabled’.
Saying it differently
Focus instead on who people are, were and want to be, their gifts and potential, the support and adjustments they require, their rights, and removing disabling barriers in society.
What people say
“When I get called a ‘complex case’ it makes me really angry. It makes me feel really dehumanised. Because one, I’m not a ‘case’, I’m a person, and you’re impacting my life. You might want to depersonalise it and make it into a case but at the end of the day, you’re impacting my life. And also it’s that thing that you’re ‘hard to deal with’ or ‘difficult’ because you don’t fit into a neat little box. Sometimes it makes you feel like it’s kind of pointless trying to seek support because you’re ‘too complex’ for them to deal with. It also makes it hard to receive support as well, because they’re like ‘we don’t know if we can deal with you, because you’re a complex case’. And so it seems to be like a bit of a get out of jail free card. So if you’re seen as a complex case, it’s like ‘oh well we can just like push her onto the next team and hope that they don’t push her back to us’, and they you just kind of like keep getting passed around, until eventually you just like go, ‘what’s the point?’ Also, I don’t think I’m that complex! I’m pretty simple to be fair. I eat, I drink, I sleep, I go to the loo, I get dressed. Do you know what I mean. I live a normal, well, a normal-ish life, but I’m not that complex you know. I just want to be able to live a normal life. A boring, normal life like everyone else is entitled to, but that just means I need a little help doing it. I don’t think it’s that complex.” – Hope Lightowler
“We tend to use ‘complex’ quite a bit in social care, and thinking about how we use that, why we use that, I suppose it’s easy to use it, it’s easy to give people that label, particularly when we’re talking about trying to justify money. You know, often there’s a relationship between somebody who is deemed as complex and the money that we spend, and the interventions and the amount of support that goes in. So the justification – we put people in that box saying it’s ok, we’re spending a lot of money. I actually think though that it’s quite a derogatory term, or it can be if you’re talking about a person. If you’re putting somebody in that box. Because we’re all complex aren’t we? We’re all complex as humans. So what does that actually mean?” – Louise Olley
“We often use that term in social care to describe somebody who is stuck in the system. Labelling somebody as complex is such a big thing isn’t it? It’s such a big label. What is it about them that’s complex? What is their situation?… If we’re labelling somebody as complex and it’s because they’re going in and around the system, and stuck, is it because we’ve not actually listened to them, and understood them?” – Louise Olley
“The term complex. What does that mean? Are you inferring I’m difficult because I don’t fit in to your system?” Steph Phillips