Introduction: The focus of this study is lay counselling - a therapeutic approach that creates a sustainable future for global mental healthcare.
Building on evidence that you don’t need formal psychotherapy qualifications to deliver effective therapeutic talk, lay counselling programmes distil the ‘active ingredients’ of talk therapy into interventions delivered by lay people.
This presentation draws on recent research collaborations between UK-based lay counselling initiative Talk for Health*, Durham University, TPO Nepal and Burans India, It will explain why global lay counselling practice now urgently warrants further research.
*At the 2022 ENMESH Conference, T4H outlined the nature of, and evidence demonstrating mental health impact of, their group peer counselling initiative, funded by the NHS in the UK since 2014, now winner of the 2022 UK Mental Health and Wellbeing Award for long term impact.
Methods: Throughout 2023, Talk for Health has collaborated with global partners to explore commonalities between their approaches to lay counselling. This think piece draws from contemporary social theory, existing literature, and the proceedings of a 2-day workshop among project partners.
Results & Discussion: Use of psychotherapy skills by lay counsellors is normally understood as ‘task-shifting’ from professionals to lay people. However, drawing on practice-based approaches to disease ontology in the social sciences, we argue that the problems mental healthcare sets out to address are in fact being radically reimagined, and addressed in novel yet effective ways, through global lay counselling initiatives.
These initiatives are often at odds with biomedical or psychotherapeutic frameworks, yet still highly effective. This has important implications for how we understand, respond to and evaluate mental health interventions.
Conclusion: We highlight an urgent need for further research into global lay counselling initiatives since they enrich our understanding of mental distress and its solutions, and create a sustainable future for global mental healthcare.