New research published in Frontiers in Psychology highlights the critical role of peer support specialists in successfully implementing dialogical-based mental health care.
Originating in Finland, Open Dialogue has shown long-term success in reducing hospitalization, medication use, and chronicity in psychiatric care. The authors argue that meaningful implementation requires peer involvement from the outset and offers a practical framework that centers lived experience as vital to therapeutic engagement, systemic change, and sustainable practice.
At the heart of this approach is a commitment to dialogue as a relational stance that invites openness, uncertainty, and mutual transformation. As Intentional Peer Support founder Shery Mead puts it:
“In real dialogue, we are able to step back from our truth and be very deeply open to the truth of the other person while also holding onto our own. When this type of dialogue occurs, both of us have the potential to see, hear and know things in ways that neither of us could have come to alone.”
The authors of the study echo this sentiment, writing:
“The uncertain and sometimes risky process of dialogue may create a space in which new and alternative meanings emerge, ones which may return to people opportunities for reclaiming voice and agency.”
The study, authored by Charlotte Hendy, Jerry Tew, and Sarah Carr, seeks to clarify how peer practitioners contribute uniquely and essentially to the practice of Open Dialogue. While peers are often seen as “add-ons” to a primarily clinical team, the authors argue that their experiential knowledge is central to dialogical integrity, relational depth, and structural change.
You've landed on a MIA journalism article that is funded by MIA supporters. To read the full article, sign up as a MIA Supporter. All active donors get full access to all MIA content, and free passes to all Mad in America events.
Current MIA supporters can log in below.(If you can't afford to support MIA in this way, email us at [email protected] and we will provide you with access to all donor-supported content.)
I think encouraging people with mental illness to network with their peers can be a good idea. Sometimes, you get the best help not by going to a professional, but by talking with a lay person who stumbled upon or figured out the key to getting better. Of course, the risk is running across people that drag you down or get you into bad habits, but hey, at least you don’t have to pay. With professionals, you have to pay and you don’t necessarily get the results you wanted. Here is an article discussing the disappointing lack of effectiveness (in general) of getting professional help: https://totalmentalhealth.info/how-well-does-psychotherapy-work-mental-health-workers-tell-the-truth/
Now, are the odds of coming across a peer with good personal success in overcoming mental health problems greater than getting an excellent psychotherapist? I don’t know. Would be cool if someone did research on that.
Report comment
I agree with the research. I practice as a Dialogical family therapist who is open about being a peer. I also utilize emotional CPR (www.emotional-cpr.org) which I and a group of peers have developed through the NEC. I have observed the success of this combination of peer support, Open Dialogue and eCPR in Poland.
Report comment