Patients with mental disorders who have recovered accompany the sick, alongside caregivers: they are called peer helpers. A university degree has just been created in Limoges to professionalize them. Republished on February 12, 2024.
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That day, at the Esquirol hospital, patients play a rather unusual game of snakes and ladders: the questions are about mental illnesses or addictions. The session allows serious subjects to be discussed in a relaxed setting.
The patients express themselves and progress in their care, accompanied by two very concerned facilitators, Didier and Aurélie. They also suffer from mental disorders, but they are treated and recovered. Today, they work alongside caregivers. They are “peer helpers”.
Didier and Aurélie. They also suffer from mental disorders, but they are treated and recovered. Today, they work alongside caregivers. They are “peer helpers”. • © France Télévisions
Aurélie shares her story: “Ten years ago, I was a saleswoman, I was at the beginning of my illness, so very excited, and very sad sometimes… I have two children, so it wasn’t easy. I would never have said to myself that I would work in health, that I would help others with my journey.”
Didier appreciates this new role in the care team: “I can work with a special needs educator, a social worker, the communications department, nurses, psychiatrists… Of course I find my place. That’s why I do this job.”
This contact with experienced patients has shown therapeutic interest. New patients take their treatments more easily, they understand their situation better and they regain hope.
For psychiatrist Irina Boghina, who works with them, the point of view of peer helpers is irreplaceable: “Caregivers have a caregiver’s point of view and do not have the knowledge that we call “experiential”. How many of our users tell us: you cannot understand us because you have not experienced this.”
Training in “peer support”
The needs are growing, so the Esquirol hospital center has launched with the University of Limoges its first university diploma in peer support training. Two days a month during a school year, students work on pathologies, medications, and they learn support and group management techniques.
It was Emilie Legros-Lafarge, psychiatrist, who set up this program: “It’s good to have a foundation to reassure yourself, to feel legitimate. It allows, in the end, to have a university diploma which is also rewarding and which allows you to have elements on a CV to legitimize the exercise of this profession.”
The students work in pairs: a patient and a professional companion. Virginie is a nurse, she will work with a patient suffering from bipolar disorder. Together, they will write a thesis: “in terms of posture, we are both students. There is no nurse and no user. We are two students stressed about writing a dissertation…”
This training should make peer support a little more commonplace. The Esquirol hospital currently employs two “peer health mediators” and calls on many volunteers, who could soon become professionals.
