#11975. Peer Support Specialists and Bourdieu’s Theory of Practice: Lay Experts and Recovery in Mental Health Organizations1

November 2026publication date
Proposal available till 03-06-2025
4 total number of authors per manuscript0 $

The title of the journal is available only for the authors who have already paid for
Journal’s subject area:
Sociology and Political Science;
Places in the authors’ list:
place 1place 2place 3place 4
FreeFreeFreeFree
2350 $1200 $1050 $900 $
Contract №11975.1 Contract №11975.2 Contract №11975.3 Contract №11975.4
1 place - free (for sale)
2 place - free (for sale)
3 place - free (for sale)
4 place - free (for sale)

More details about the manuscript: Science Citation Index Expanded or/and Social Sciences Citation Index
Abstract:
Through in-depth interviews, this study explored the objective and subjective experiences of 14 peer support specialists (PSSs) working in three community mental health centers. Abductive analyses identified theoretical framework as a useful tool to understand how peers constructed and enacted a distinct theory of practice which shaped their roles as lay experts. Recovery was the peers’ primary habitus (predisposition) and their recovery-based theory of practice was supported by cultural frameworks and materialist resources. Together, these sources of capital formed a palpable degree of symbolic capital that supported the peers’ recovery journey while also structuring and legitimizing their presence in the workplace. This study has implications primarily for mental health policy and research. It offers theoretically guided insights into how lay experts in mental health subjectively understood and objectively realized their recovery-based role through material and symbolic sources of capital. Furthermore, these accounts extend our understanding of recovery beyond an endeavor that is practiced and realized by individuals. Recovery also is facilitated and reproduced at the organizational level by the community health agencies.
Keywords:
Lay experts; mental health; policy; recovery; theory of practice

Contacts :
0