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What is peer support?

Peer support is a system of giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect, shared responsibility, and mutual agreement of what is helpful. Peer support is not based on psychiatric models and diagnostic criteria. It is about understanding another’s situation empathically through  the shared experience of emotional and psychological pain. When people find affiliation with others they feel “like” them, they feel a connection. This connection, or affiliation, is a deep, holistic understanding based on mutual experience where people are able to “be” with each other without the restraints of traditional (expert/patient) relationships. Further, as trust in the relationship builds, both people are able to respectfully challenge each other when they find themselves in conflict. This allows members of the peer community to try out new behaviours with one another and move beyond previously held self-concepts built on disability and diagnosis. This is referred to as “mutual empowerment”.

Peer support can offer a culture of health and ability as opposed to a culture of “illness” and disability. The primary role is to responsibly challenge the assumptions about mental illnesses and at the same time to validate the individual for whom they really are and where the have come from. Peer support should attempt to think creatively and non-judgmentally about the way individuals experience and make meaning of their lives in contrast to having all actions and feelings diagnosed and labelled.

Finally, peer support is not about “joining  a club for the mentally ill”. It is not a competition of stories or symptoms or about being rescued or infantalised. Peer support is an inclusive model that creates room for all people to fully experience “being who they are”, growing in the direction of their choice and, in the process of being supported in these goals, begin to help restructure larger systems.

How we can do it

Some of the resources we may develop include:

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Strengthening self-advocacy (creating wellness plans, creating advanced directives, negotiating with your psychiatrist etc);

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Understanding the difference between advocacy “with” and advocacy “for”;

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 Practicing mutuality and reciprocity — building mutually empowering relationships;

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Recognising and diminishing co-dependency in multiple forms and guises;

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Working though the damaging effects of past or current abuse and violence (understanding the personal, relational, and political);

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Generating Wellness Recovery Action Plans (WRAP) which can help people strategize ways to stay well;

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Offering alternative views and strategies for people who hear voices;

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Creating music and artwork as a form of social action and a way to communicate difficult feelings; and

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Developing a variety of social activities that break down social isolation and help build community.

(Adapted from Mead, Hilton & Curtis 2003)

 

 

 

 

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Last modified: 21 August, 2007