Peer counseling is the most common intervention that Peer Support Specialists provide. It requires a specific set of skills that take years to learn to do well. Most people do not come by them naturally - we often have to unlearn bad habits around giving advice. Peer counseling is different from psychotherapy in important ways. Both involve talking and listening in the context of helping relationships, but they are very different. When we confuse the two, there can be bad outcomes for everyone. When done well, they complement each other and produce better outcomes than either alone.

This book is designed to be an easy-to-access resource that you can have with you and use while you are providing peer counseling. It is also designed to be a training resource for Peer Support Specialists and other peer counselors who are learning these skills. It includes theory and background information, but it is designed to encourage you to practice and build your counseling skills. Chapters focus on specific skills and strategies, including effective listening, telling recovery stories that promote change, working with ambivalence, ethical issues, and building advanced peer counseling skills. Exercises and questions will guide your skill development. It is designed for Peer Support Specialists working with adults using mental health and/or substance use services, but the skills are relevant for peer counselors working in other fields, such as in schools, self-help groups, medical settings and religious organizations

We generally assume that people get mental healthcare when they need it. There is clear evidence this is not true. More than half of adults with mental healthcare needs in the United States do not participate in any treatment, and when they do, there is a median delay of 11 years before they enter needed care. Healthcare organizations tend to be passive in the face of this pattern of long delays in treatment entry. Their traditional stance is to wait until patients come to them. The problem with this strategy is that it results in long, unnecessary delays, with more suffering and more cost to those individuals, their families, their employers, the broader community, and ultimately to the healthcare industry.

Peer Support Specialists and outreach workers can play a key role in helping people make timely decisions to enter needed mental health treatment and supports like self-help groups. Unfortunately, they rarely receive more than minimal training on how to do this effectively and in a way that respects the autonomy and the needs of their clients.

This pocket resource provides the tools and strategies to ensure Peer Support Specialists and outreach workers are well prepared for this critically important work.

I don't know of any other resource like this that addresses how to help people enter treatment when they actually need it, and not years later. It focuses on a gigantic need in the mental health field that is generally being ignored at a high cost to our communities. This book is full of practical information and tools that work with people who are ambivalent about getting help.

Charles Drebing, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry at the Boston University School of Medicine, has been a strong advocate for the strategic use of peer support and outreach to better serve adults recovering from mental illness.