13 September 2018
Mental health inpatient wards can be traumatising for people with psychosis. Bristol Health Partners and CLAHRC West want to co-design peer support to address the root causes of this and help rewrite the psychosis narrative.
We have applied for funding to the Q Exchange, and are really excited that we are a shortlisted project. The final decision on funding will be at the Q event, where we will be able to discuss our project with other people interested in quality improvement in health services.
“From the dual perspective of having been a patient and now working in mental health, it’s clear that for many people, being in hospital is more traumatic than the experience of psychosis itself. This needs to change.”
– Member of research team and project co-lead
For people who have experienced symptoms of psychosis, negative hospital experiences can lead to stigma, isolation, loss of confidence and potentially rejection of services. Messages of hopelessness received from staff and unequal power dynamics can cause disempowerment, low self-esteem and resentment of the system. We need to improve experiences of mental health in-patient wards for service users, their families and staff.
“Any crisis contains within it the seed for transformation. Psychosis is no different and we believe that peer support on inpatient wards could be a crucial first step in facilitating this process.”
Dr Michelle Farr and her co-lead on the project
A study found that 61% of people with diagnoses of psychosis or schizophrenia were told by mental health providers that recovery was impossible. Peer supporters can provide positive role models, to show that recovery is possible after a mental health crisis.
Our proposal has been inspired by a public involvement event called Rewriting Psychosis, run by the Psychosis Health Integration Team. This event, attended by over 130 people, showed the film CrazyWise, a documentary about different cultures’ definitions and responses to psychosis. This proposal is one of the outcomes of the event discussions and develops ideas to co-design peer support in inpatient wards.
We want to co-design a peer support scheme on in-patient wards with service users, those close to them, staff and peer support workers. Through using appreciative inquiry techniques, we will build on people’s strengths, values and ideas, learning from examples of peer support in inpatient settings that people have shared with us, and exploring diverse, culturally sensitive understandings of psychosis symptoms.
Our conceptual framework stems from work carried out by one of the members of our research team during their MSc in Transpersonal Psychology with the Alef Trust. Transpersonal psychology involves studying human transformation, and our research team member’s learning in this, as well as their lived experience of transformative recovery, has informed the roots of the project. We will draw on post traumatic growth models that outline thriving and resilience as a potential outcome for crisis, so that breakdowns can become breakthroughs.
We have applied for funding to the Q Exchange, and were really excited to hear that from a total of 139 applications, we are one of 25 shortlisted projects. We will be taking part in the Q event where we are looking forward to connecting with other projects. We will pitch for votes from all the Q community members attending the event, which will determine the 15 projects that receive funding.
Using appreciative inquiry, and building on people’s strengths, values and ideas, we will:
We want to build connections with others to: