Common themes that experts talk about with clients are dealing with ups and downs, taking good care of yourself, using the support of loved ones and your network, dealing with prejudices about mental illness and yourself (stigma and self-stigma), dealing with your self-image and how to proceed after treatment. Tamara: "Together we spar about these kinds of themes, and about how to address yourself about them. For example, I really need my rest. It is important to find it normal that you have to recover after a busy week. I then say: it's charging time again."
Use of experts by experience
Experiential experts offer hope and perspective
If you are being treated at the NPI, you can also talk to an expert by experience. The recognition, acknowledgment and equality give clients hope and perspective, say practitioner Martje van Giffen and experience expert Tamara Frans. "I recognize their thoughts."
Experiential experts use their own experiences as clients in a professional way to help others. Talking to an expert by experience does people good, notice experience expert Tamara Frans and Martje van Giffen, practitioner and project leader at NPI-Herstel. "I always tell something about my personal experiences," says Tamara. "Clients often have the image that practitioners have no problems," says Martje. "As a result, they don't always dare to share everything with their therapist. They don't have that with Tamara." Tamara: "It's easier to share your thoughts with someone who has also been through something. I recognize their thoughts. That makes the contact very equal."
'There is hope'
"I always advise my clients to talk to an expert by experience," says Martje. "They are very positive about it. I keep hearing the same things: that it is very equal, that the experience expert immediately knows what they are talking about, that they spar together about what helps with recovery and how they can tackle it. The other day I asked a client who would like to work again how the conversation with Tamara went. With a sigh of relief, she said, "It was wonderful. Because Tamara, like me, also has her vulnerabilities, and she works at the NPI. That offers hope.' Tamara shows clients that they are more than their vulnerabilities. She points out their strength and possibilities, and shows them how they can determine their own lives."
Working together on recovery
"The road to recovery is a lonely route," Tamara knows. "By talking to an expert by experience, clients feel that they are not alone. My treatments here were very good, but I missed someone around me who said: you're doing well, keep it up. It motivates me a lot that, as an expert by experience, I can tell people that you can do it together."
Sparring together
Valuable role
Martje: "Recovery is a matter of taking small steps at a time. Tamara has a good eye for that. If a client is having a bad day, she says: 'How good that you are here.' Tamara also has a very valuable role in the team of practitioners. For example, I say that someone has a relapse. Tamara then says, for example: 'This client may need recharging time, because he has been very busy.' She often looks at it differently. I regularly ask her for advice: what did you need in a certain situation? What would work for this client?"
Perspective
Research shows that it helps clients to talk to an expert by experience. Martje notices that too. "I feel that clients recover more easily because of this. I don't have to explain to clients who have contact with Tamara what recovery is. They see it in Tamara." Experiential experts offer clients recognition, recognition, hope and perspective. Tamara: "Clients say: because of you I feel again that I can build a life myself."