Becoming a Peer Health Mediator: Experiencing mental health problems as a source of empowerment?
Fanchini, Agathe
Becoming a Peer Health Mediator: Experiencing mental health problems as a source of empowerment? - 2021.
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Professional “Peer Health Mediators” (PHM) are former users of mental health services who have chosen to use their personal experience of a mental disorder to help other patients move forward in their recovery process. Within the framework of a professional training programme which combines a Bachelor’s degree in Health and Social Sciences (at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord) and fieldwork, PHMs are recruited based on their experience rather than their academic and professional background. While they bear the stigma of mental disability with varying degrees of visibility, PHMs are nonetheless among those who have “made it”. This work therefore explores the logics of domination and identity dynamics that define their empowerment journey. Along with an interview-based qualitative survey, our analysis, which is illustrated with descriptions of typical profiles, sheds light on the dynamics at work in empowerment journeys that are both unique and always shaped by social determinants, and within which training and returning to employment can contribute to affording them agency.
Becoming a Peer Health Mediator: Experiencing mental health problems as a source of empowerment? - 2021.
38
Professional “Peer Health Mediators” (PHM) are former users of mental health services who have chosen to use their personal experience of a mental disorder to help other patients move forward in their recovery process. Within the framework of a professional training programme which combines a Bachelor’s degree in Health and Social Sciences (at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord) and fieldwork, PHMs are recruited based on their experience rather than their academic and professional background. While they bear the stigma of mental disability with varying degrees of visibility, PHMs are nonetheless among those who have “made it”. This work therefore explores the logics of domination and identity dynamics that define their empowerment journey. Along with an interview-based qualitative survey, our analysis, which is illustrated with descriptions of typical profiles, sheds light on the dynamics at work in empowerment journeys that are both unique and always shaped by social determinants, and within which training and returning to employment can contribute to affording them agency.
Réseaux sociaux