1 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 stati