Peer visitor role in mental health

It is not the role of a peer visitor to diagnose or treat mental health challenges that the person they are visiting may be experiencing.  Nor it is it their role to provide medical advice.  Your role does include providing hope and optimism, encouraging the person you’re visiting to share their feelings, listening to them, engaging in communication to help them with their recovery, and generally providing support.

If you have had a similar experience to your peer’s, you can offer some insight as to what you did when you were in the situation and what worked for you.  It is crucial that you are making it clear that you are not telling them to adopt the same methods and remedies as you did.  Every individual is different and the same methods that worked for you may not apply to your peers.  As a peer visitor, you have specifically agreed to use the wisdom you have gained through your personal experience in an intentional way.  Much of the focus in your support of another person with amputation is on mutuality.  Mutuality means a focus on the relationship rather than either individual.  It also means an acceptance that both people involved can learn from and be impacted by the peer support relationship.  Mutuality also reduces power imbalances in peer support work;  this is particularly important in the context of mental health challenges.