Rosenverse
The power to heal and harm

This video is only accessible to Gold members. Log in or register for a free Gold Trial Account to watch.

Log in Register

Most conference talks are accessible to Gold members, while community videos are generally available to all logged-in members.

The power to heal and harm

Gold
Thursday, March 13, 2025 • Advancing Research 2025
Share the love for this talk
The power to heal and harm
Speakers: Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Link:

Summary

Research holds great potential to both heal and harm—both ourselves and the communities we engage with. This session will help you to understand these impacts, and learn best practices to reduce harm and foster healing ethically and responsibly.

Key Insights

  • Research is never neutral; it is embedded within power structures and influences who is seen and heard.

  • Design research lacks formal ethical guardrails, unlike professions like social work or medicine, creating vulnerabilities.

  • The culture of urgency and speed in research often leads to extractive, performative practices that minimize harm.

  • Moral injury in research arises from systemic ethical failure, creating profound conflicts between values and work demands.

  • Minimizing or sanitizing harm enables institutions to avoid accountability while perpetuating cycles of ethical breaches.

  • Researchers can reclaim agency by setting personal ethical boundaries, advocating for care, and building supportive communities.

  • The RK Institute’s two loops model illustrates how old unethical research systems decline while trauma-informed approaches emerge.

  • Trauma-responsive research centers five principles: safety, transparency, co-creation, empowerment, and hope.

  • Slowing down research is a radical form of resistance prioritizing dignity, trust, and sustainability over speed.

  • Accountability and ethical frameworks must be integrated into organizational cultures, not left to individual researchers.

Notable Quotes

"You can't be neutral on a moving train."

"In design, it's the BYOE model—bring your own ethics."

"Moral injury is not just about witnessing harm; it's the inner knowing that you might also be complicit in producing it."

"Minimizing harm protects institutions, not people."

"Slowing down is not inefficiency; it is a commitment to dignity and trust."

"Moving fast isn’t just breaking things, it’s actually breaking people."

"The pressure to produce insights quickly defines many organizations shaped by 'move fast and break things' culture."

"Discomfort should not be dismissed; it’s a signpost for necessary change."

"Research should prioritize participant and researcher well-being over institutional convenience."

"The power of a bold idea uttered publicly in defiance of dominant opinion cannot be easily measured."

Ask the Rosenbot
Erika Flowers
The Handoff is Dead: Design-Led Engineering with AI Agents
2026 • Rosenfeld Community
Shipra Kayan
How we Built a VoC (Voice of the Customer) Practice at Upwork from the Ground Up
2021 • DesignOps Summit 2021
Gold
Rachael Dietkus, LCSW
Trauma-Responsive Design: Reimagining the Future of Design Now
2021 • Civic Design 2021
Gold
Daniel Korczynski
Why AI Is Bad at Research (and how to make it actually useful)
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Josh Clark
Sentient Design, AI, and the Radically Adaptive Experience (1st of 3 seminars)
2025 • Rosenfeld Community
Bria Alexander
The Big Question about Resilience: A panel discussion
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Andrew Michael
Building a Product Insights Team
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
Sarah Rink
Remote User Research: Dos and Don'ts from the Virtual Field
2020 • Advancing Research Community
Vitorio Miliano
Don’t call it AI: Turn words into numbers with quantitative ethnography
2026 • Advancing Research 2026
Gold
Surya Vanka
Unleashing Swarm Creativity to Solve Enterprise Challenges
2021 • Design at Scale 2021
Gold
Samuel Proulx
Invisible barriers: Why accessible service design can’t be an afterthought
2024 • Advancing Service Design 2024
Gold
Emily DiLeo
Stronger Together: Lessons Learned from UX Research Ops
2024 • DesignOps Summit 2024
Gold
Jemma Ahmed
Theme 2 Intro
2022 • Advancing Research 2022
Gold
John Cutler
Prioritization for designers and product managers (1st of 3 seminars)
2024 • Rosenfeld Community
Nancy Douyon
We'll Figure That Out in the Next Launch: Enterprise Tech's Nobility Complex
2018 • Enterprise Experience 2018
Gold
Maverick Chan
From Doodle to Demo: AI as Our Storytelling Partner
2025 • Rosenfeld Community

More Videos

Louis Rosenfeld

"Our curators have been working for months taking presentations from little ideas to something big that advances design ops as practice."

Louis Rosenfeld Bria Alexander

Day 1 Welcome

September 23, 2024

Lisa Gironda

"Almost immediately when I started, I would say, oh no, let me take that or I can do that. And then I did."

Lisa Gironda

Opener: Chief of Staff–An unexpected journey

January 8, 2024

Jamie Beck Alexander

"Design and climate is the most important collaboration that needs to happen to bring climate solutions into the world at scale."

Jamie Beck Alexander Nina Gregg Shawn Petersen Bill DeRouchey

How can you find your role in climate?

January 17, 2024

Iram Shah

"I may be ruining his experience because I’m forgetting it’s his experience, not mine."

Iram Shah

Closing Keynote: The View from the Top

June 4, 2019

Melinda Belcher

"Flexibility goes both ways: consultants must adapt to the client’s way, but clients must allow consultants to bring new approaches."

Melinda Belcher

Insider preview of Enterprise Experience 2020

May 28, 2020

Natalia Radywyl

"Power sharing requires behavior change, reflection, and descending about expertise."

Natalia Radywyl

Co-Designing New Power in Australia's Public Sector

November 16, 2022

Uday Gajendar

"Influence is the real goal as a designer—over people, processes, and culture."

Uday Gajendar

The Rise of Meta-Design: A Starter Playbook

May 19, 2022

Jesse Zolna

"There’s no half-assing it. If you want to be involved in developing solutions, you better have significant client exposure."

Jesse Zolna

Inviting the Whole Org to Come See For Yourself

March 30, 2020

Steve Baty

"I prefer techniques where individuals generate ideas quietly first, so their train of thought isn’t lost in group dynamics."

Steve Baty Richard Dalton Maria Giudice Harry Max

Discussion

June 9, 2016