ABSTRACT
Who's voice and who's knowledge counts? How can we have conversations where all voices are heard and what we come to know is appreciated and acted upon? To illuminate these questions, we draw upon Wibecke's story. Wibecke is a peer recovery worker in her late forties. Research on peer recovery services within mental health and substance abuse needs to be located in temporal, cultural and geographical contexts. Attending to narrative structural analysis facilitates a deeper understanding of the experiences of a peer worker's journey to recovery. We hope to show one particular story can contribute to more appropriate user-oriented services, engage people in decisions which affect their future, how social and healthcare professionals need to know more in order to do better work and how those who come wearing ‘disciplines’ need to see the whole rather than the parts. There are many lessons to be learned about change and sustainability in this chapter. One is that if we are part of creating the way things are, then we are also co-responsible for the way things are. Another is that in order to improve wellbeing, issues of harnessing peer experiences, resilience, hope, despair, forgiveness and compassion must be positively addressed.
