"En av oss" : en studie av muligheter og utfordringer ved ansettelser av personer med erfaringskompetanse i psykisk helsevern

Masteroppgave i psykisk helsearbeid- Universitetet i Agder 2010Background: How do we provide the best suitable service for mental health? If we hold on to the traditional medical models and methods that are based on evidence and has worked for years, or do we develop the approach further and see if other types of knowledge should be included and be seen as valid in treatment of mental illness? Maybe developing the term “empowerment” can contribute to change the original pattern of treatment? My research involves a continuation of the empowerment concept, as I see it, and is about the question; can and should people with this expertise be employed in mental health care either through clinical work, research or teaching? My question was about opportunities and challenges of employing people with personal experience as only expertise in mental health care. Method: I have chosen qualitative depth interviews with six informants who all work within mental health, working two and two together in the combination theoretic expertise / personal experience qualifications. The interviews are transcribed and analyzed with the purpose to understand each one's experience and thoughts about employment of people with personal experience as expertise. Results and summary: The most prominent similarities in the material is that there is broad agreement that employers with personal experience in mental illness, have the unique opportunity to give hope for improvement, to get patients / group participants to open up and to get them to understand their condition better. It is also common consensus among all informants, that they need each other's knowledge. A pattern of findings about the challenges is that the employers with personal experience´ own suffering is processed and whether it has confidence in relation to the past and their own "triggers".Keywords: personal experience qualification (EK), theoretic expertise (FK) diversity, proximit