Becoming a consumer-provider of mental health services: Dialogical identity development in prosumers in the United States of America and Japan

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe aim of this study was to examine the process in which peer-delivered service providers, or prosumers, developed an identity as a prosumer in the United States and Japan. Participants were 25 prosumers from the United States and 23 from Japan, who provided peer-delivered services for wages. The authors analyzed data from qualitative, in-depth interviews and created a conceptual model of prosumer identity development. In addition, the authors identified common themes that characterized their experiences as developing prosumers and contextual factors that affected their identity development from a social constructionist perspective. Results indicate the following: (1) prosumers experience sense of worth and/or distress affected by societal, cultural, and historical factors of their environment associated with prosumer work; and (2) prosumers develop a prosumer identity as they pursue a sense of worth and actively address distress, by integrating the preexisting consumer and provider positions at ...