peer mentoring & recs

Peer support is a collaboration of giving and receiving help founded on key principles of respect, shared responsibility, and mutual agreement of what is helpful.

Peer mentoring or coaching is a service offered by an experienced peer to a peer that needs support and coaching through a difficult period.

Peer support is not based on psychiatric models and diagnostic criteria. It is about understanding an other’s situation emphatically through the shared experience of emotional and psychological experiences. When people find affiliation with others they feel are” like” them, they feel a connection. This connection, or affiliation, is a deep, holistic understanding based on mutual experience where people are able to “be” with each other without the constraints of traditional (doctor/patient) relationships.

Peer to peer support is offered through the group as a whole. If you are interested in individual peer mentoring & therapy services, we do have peer mentors & coaches who are experienced and available to offer their services. The rates are negotiated between you and your peer mentor-therapist.

For information, please email:  peermentortherapist@gmail.com Be sure to include your email, phone number, day and time preferences and your needs, so that we are able to recommend the appropriate peer-mentor therapist to you.

The Los Angeles Times (12/18/96) reported that an eight year study showed that peer-support alcoholism treatment was as effective as professional treatment.

Patients had less depression and other psychological problems after joining in weekly peer group meetings. Epilepsia (1993)

There is hard evidence which establishes a link between participation in peer support groups and improvement in symptoms of physical and mental illness.” Dr. Louis J. Medvene, UCLA

A study reported in Behavior Therapy (1985) compared a professional weight loss program with peer support groups and found those in the peer support groups lost equal amounts of weight for a fraction of the cost.