The Journal of Humanistic Psychology editorial team is inviting submissions for a special issue of the journal focused on Understanding and Upholding Authenticity in Peer/Lived and Living Experience Workforces.
In recent years, peer support and the broader Lived and Living experience workforce have expanded dramatically across mental health, substance use, and related health and social service systems. Increasingly designated Lived and Living Experience roles are being employed in support services and beyond.
While the evidence base for peer/Lived Experience work continues to grow—demonstrating improvements in hope, activation, engagement, and recovery outcomes—less attention has been paid to how authenticity is defined, operationalized, protected, and reproduced over time. When Lived and Living experience expertise is marginalized, co-opted, or narrowly professionalized, the consequences can include role drift, erosion of mutuality, epistemic injustice, workforce burnout, and dilution of the social movement roots of peer work.
This special issue invites contributions that critically examine how authenticity can be sustained and advanced across Lived and Living experience workforces and in Lived Experience–led research. We are particularly interested in scholarship that moves beyond inclusion toward cohesion. We welcome work that shows how experiential knowledge is created, shared, improved, and used in systems, organizations, communities, and research projects. We are calling on you to share with us some of the cutting-edge, innovative and/or collaborative approaches that explore:
Submissions may examine workforce development, training, supervision, governance, co-production, implementation science, intersectionality, identity formation, epistemic justice, evaluation methods, and effectiveness research—particularly when grounded in the voices and leadership of Lived and Living experience experts.
Visit the Sage landing page for more information on submitting an abstract.
Guest Editors: Louise Byrne, Megan Evans, Cath Roper, Megan Edwards, Helena Roennfeldt, Taina Martinez Laing, Keris Myrick, Felecia Pullen, Melissa Chapman, & Chyrell Bellamy.