ABSTRACT
After many years of campaigning by mental health service users and recognition of its importance by policy makers and service providers, service user involvement is now a prominent feature in many areas of mental health. Service user involvement while not without its issues is now therefore considered to play a vital role in service development with many services now moving to co-production, where Power and decision-making is ostensibly shared by service users and providers as they Work to bring together different types of knowledge and skills, based on their respective lived and professional experience. While there is an increasing number in research programmes and some in service and policy development, there appears to be little direct evidence in the literature of user involvement in clinical settings. From a mental health service user who has used various forms of counselling and therapy services, this chapter aims to raise awareness of these issues and promote open discussion and debate so that a way forward for user involvement may be found in clinical therapy just as it has in other areas of mental health.
