Peer Support: A Systemic Approach

Family Therapy has long had an interest in systems theory as a way of understanding the many complex factors contributing to the way that people make meaning through interactions with one another (Boscolo et al, 1987; Bateson, 1972; Anderson, 1997). Peer support in mental health has much to learn from this theoretical vantage point. As a somewhat family like environment, peer support utilizes dialogue to build and evolve alternative perspectives about people’s experiences, roles, and relationships (Mead, 2001). This dialogue has the potential to foster strong, learning communities in which problems and help become everyone’s responsibility. This paper will offer some thoughts about how the use of systems theory might protect the integrity of peer support as a tool for social change. Systems theory (in terms of human systems) presupposes that there is no empirical truth; rather that meaning is contextual (e.g. that people are evolving products of their social world). Further, there is also no one observable truth. The observer’s perception becomes inextricably linked with what is being observed, therefore not static but constantly open to new interpretation (Waldrop, 1992; Capra, 1986, 1992, Holland, 1995). In mental health this notion challenges the more linear, dynamic view that there is a problem to be fixed. In other words, the assumption in traditional mental health is that with expert training in assessment one can identify a generalizable problem for which there is treatment (see the DSM IV, 1994). The goal then of this treatment is to increase individual functioning within the larger social environment. There is little focus on relational outcomes, mutuality, and larger social change. Peer support by definition assumes relationship and reciprocity. In the best of all worlds people are simply seen as people interacting and reacting in a variety of ways based on context. Problems are not considered generalizable or diagnosable, but rather transitory. Finally, the potential outcomes of peer support are diverse, evolving communities in which everyone has a variety of roles and relationships (Mead, 2001, Mead & MacNeil in review).