Psychiatrization of Resistance: The Co-option of Consumer, Survivor, and Ex-patient Movements

🌿A recent qualitative study of interviews with psychosocial disability shows how discourses of psychiatrization can operate

💡Through structural and interpersonal power dynamics to stifle resistance.

🌱Participants who were interviewed described several practices by MGMH groups that created barriers

💡To the full inclusion of people with psychosocial disabilities in decision-making processes.

🌿These ranged from subtle put-downs to what appeared to be deliberate attempts to “tokenize” and “co-opt” their contributions.

🌱Several activist participants described having the experience of feeling stuck when deciding between whether to engage in certain projects

💡or to remove themselves and their organizations entirely.

🌿Participants feared that participating risked lending a sort of legitimacy to a project they did not agree with,

🌱by giving the appearance that it included lived-experience perspectives,

🌿but it could also allow them to have some influence on removing the parts they found most dangerous.

💡On the other hand, if they refused to participate, it could send a message that these projects need to be more inclusive from the start,

🌱but it risked allowing a project to move forward that would perpetuate psychiatrization

🌿Without regard to psychosocial disability advocates’ political concerns.

💡One participant is quoted, as describing this experience as “tokenism,” saying that “in these institutionalized spaces people with psychosocial disabilities are seen only as an endorsement.

🌱They care about our testimony, not our participation in any active way that could lead to transformation.”

🌿He added, however, that “the lack of alternatives forces us to take advantage of any space that is open to make change, to transform” Interventionsnts found that allowing professional psychiatrists to collaborate on these interventions risked “co-option”.

💡Organizations of people with psychosocial disabilities and scholar-activists have explicitly addressed the risks inherent in collaboration.

🌱Unless the power of the psychiatric narrative is upended.

Peer support roles in the mentalhealth workforce – examples ofcurrent practice

📌What the report covers

🌱The New Mental Health Outcomes Strategy, Recovery and Organisational Change Learning from the Demonstration Sites

🔵The process of organisational change

🔘Transforming the mental health workforce

🔵The Peer Support Role – Job Descriptions and Person Specifications

🔘New Ways of Working

🔵Values and Ethics of mental health recovery and peer support

🔘Examples of job descriptions & person specifications for peer support workers

🔵Learning and Development for Peer Support Workers

🔘Current examples of peer support learning programmes

🔵Recovery Education Centres

🔘Preparing Your Organisation for the Introduction of the Peer Support Role

🔵How is peer support ‘friendly’ in your organisation?

🔘The importance of a clear framework for management and supervision

🔵Promoting good mental health at work

Lived Experience (Peer) Workforce Framework

📌Heres what’s in the guides

🌿Defining Lived Experience (Peer) Work

💡Core values and guiding principles of Lived Experience (Peer) Work

🌿Employment of the Lived experience (Peer) workforce

💡Advertising and Recruitment

🌿Support for the Workforce

💡Supervision and mentoring

🌿Workforce Support

💡Professional Development

🌿Core competencies

💡Roles and Responsibilities

🌿Specialisation

💡Example Position Descriptions

🌿Example Wellbeing Support Plan

💡Sample Onboarding document

Centring Lived Experience: Astrategic approach for leaders

📌What the guide covers

What does centring lived experience meaningfully look like?


🔘Step 1: Prepare and explore

🌱Build buy-in to doing this meaningfully

💡Reflect on your current resources and capabilities

🌱Understand the specific strengths and needs of people

💡Learn from others


🔘Step 2: Define the ‘why’ and the ‘what’

🌱Articulate your clear shared purpose

💡Decide how you will capture impact and learning

🌱Agree on a timeline


🔘Step 3: Develop your approach

💡What do we want the lived experience to influence?

🌱What type of involvement is right?

💡Who will make this happen?

🌱What skills will we need to develop or acquire?

💡How will you resource and fund this work?


🔘Step 4: Prepare for meaningful and safe delivery

🌱Ethical considerations

💡Ensuring you have diverse insight to draw on


Get the full guide here 👇

He arataki ki ngā kaimahimātau ā-wheako: A guide to the consumer, peer support, and lived experience workforce in mental health and addiction settings

By Te Pou

📌The guide covers –

🌿What is in scope for mātau ā-wheako CPSLE workers

🌱Benefits of mātau ā-wheako roles

💡Mātau ā-wheako roles

✨Key values – Tiriti-centric principles

🌿Challenges experienced by mātau ā-wheako CPSLE workers

🌱Mātau ā-wheako boundaries

💡A thriving mātau ā-wheako CPSLE workforce

✨Organisational development

🌿How to build organisational commitment

🌱Workplace culture
Preparation and training for non-mātau ā-wheako colleagues

💡Recruitment and retention

✨Prerequisites

🌿Advertising for positions

🌱Selection processes

💡Job descriptions

✨Orientation and induction

🌿Joint Orientation

🌱Remuneration

💡Workplace adjustments

✨Managing the transition from a person accessing services to a mātau ā-wheako CPSLE worker

🌿Self-disclosure at work

🌱Wellbeing plans

💡Learning and Development Training

✨Professional development

🌿Line management

🌱Performance review

💡Reflective practices for mātau ā-wheako CPSLE workers

✨Mātau ā-weak reflective practice for managers

🌿Career pathways

🌱Information, research, and evaluation

💡Service development and quality improvement

✨Quality improvement

🌿Workforce development infrastructure

🌱Considerations for organisational policies

💡Networking opportunities

✨Commissioning considerations
Access, choice, and referral to mātau ā-wheako services

🌿Planning and funding for the mātau ā-wheako CPSLE workforce

🌱Funding and accountability arrangements

Peer Support Work in Hospital: A First Person and Lived Experience Guide

💠Peer support offers hope of progressive recovery and feelings of safety in an inpatient environment that can sometimes be experienced as distressing, lethargic, boring, despairing, and even hostile.
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🌿The main themes were

💡Feelings of being listened to, valued, accepted, heard, understood, and worthwhile.

✔️Better experiences and satisfaction with care.

💡Promoting a safe environment and feelings of safety.

✔️Assisting with ward reviews, Mental Health Tribunals and appeals.

💡Leading and encouraging people to engage in ward activities.

✔️Encouraging medication adherence.

💡Assisting with discharge and freeing up beds.

✔️Insight into hearing voices, seeing things (hallucinations), and unusual thoughts or beliefs (delusions).

💡Encouraging people to focus on their strengths and positives and build upon them.

✔️Encouraging people’s skills and goals to offer a future in which recovery is planned for and achievable.

💡Calming people having a panic attack.

✔️De-escalating situations, intervening, and preventing the need for restraint by staff. Also preventing aggression/violence between people on the ward and toward staff

💡Listening and developing coping strategies and insight into trauma.

✔️Deflecting/preventing suicidal thoughts.

💡Raising awareness of LGBTQ+ issues among staff (and in their interactions with LGBTQ+ people on the ward).

✔️Encouraging drug/alcohol cessation.

💡The benefit of PSWs taking people on escorted leave (especially when staff are too busy).

✔️Supporting people with unescorted leave, especially helpful for those who are anxious about going out alone.

💡Encouraging physical exercise (walking, dancing, football, table tennis, basketball, etc.).

✔️Encouraging people to eat and self-care.

💡Empowering people to think about and resolve issues at home practically and pragmatically.

✔️Supporting staff when they feel overwhelmed.

Developing peer support in the community: a toolkit

🔥By Mind and The McPin Foundation

📌The toolkit covers

💡Types of peer support

🌱Using the toolkit as a group

💡Starting conversations and

🌱Core values

💡Experiences In common

🌱Safety

💡Choice and control

🌱 Two-way interactions

💡Human connection

🌱Freedom to be oneself

Click the link the the toolkit 👇

Developing peer support in the community: a toolkit | Mind

Experts by Experience; Guidelines to support the development of Peer Worker roles in the mental health sector

📚 Guidance documents

🔥By the Scottish Recovery Network

📌What the guide includes

🌱Defining peer support

💡Principles and values of peer support

🌱The peer principle

💡The helpers principle

🌱Empowerment

💡The case for developing peer roles

🌱The wiser experience

💡Cycles of change

🌱Common hurdles

💡Preparation and planning

🌱Taking stock

💡Recruitment

🌱Supporting peer workers

💡Developing and sustaining peer worker roles

Keeping it real’: A qualitative exploration of preferences of people with lived experience for participation and active involvement in mental health research

🌱Participants described the inclusion of lived experience as a critical ingredient and the highest level of knowledge

💡And expertise in mental health research that should lead to knowledge generation and research agendas.

🌱Participants discussed the importance and value of research that enables sharing experiences and stories,

💡Expressed a need for flexibility in research methods for choice and agency

🌱 And support for greater active involvement of people with lived experience across all stages of research.

💡Participants also spoke to the need for perspective and knowledge generated from people with lived experience to have equal power in research,

🌱Making space for lived experience voices across multiple aspects of research,

💡And greater respect and recognition of the value of lived experience.

The Lived Experience of Autistic Adults in Employment: A Systematic Search and Synthesis

📌Four themes were identified:

💡Navigating Social Demands;

🌱The Disabling Nature of the Work Environment designed for neurotypical workers;

💡Adapt to Me;

🌱And Understanding, Knowledge, and Acceptance.

💡The results reveal nuances to inclusionary and exclusionary employment for the autistic workforce.

🌱Findings encourage the prioritization of the voice of autistic workers when designing working environments.

💡They also function as a critique of the traditional approaches that placed employers, managers, and human resource professionals as the dominant agents of decision-making.

🌱In these traditional practices, the burden of making employment viable was on the worker, rather than the employer.