Peer Support by People with Personal Experience

About the job

Support from people who have been through it themselves.

There are moments when you don’t need any more explanations.

You need someone who listens. Someone who doesn’t get startled. Someone who understands that a mental health crisis is not just a "difficult moment" but something that can change the ground beneath your feet.

Our peers are people who have themselves experienced psychological shocks, crises, or difficult phases in life. They know these inner fractures in their own way. They know what it’s like when orientation is missing, when trust is hard to find, or when everyday life suddenly no longer feels natural.

And they also know: it can become different again.

Not immediately. Not easily. Not always straightforward.

But step by step.

Peers have not simply left their experiences behind. Rather, they have found ways to deal with what they have been through, to grow from it, and to create something that can now provide support to others.

Peer support lives from lived experience.

This does not mean that two people must have experienced the same thing. Nor does it mean that peers provide ready-made answers.

It means that there is someone who knows how vulnerable a person can be in a mental health crisis. Someone who knows shame, insecurity, withdrawal, or hopelessness not just from books.

Sometimes that exactly opens up a space.

A space where not everything has to be explained immediately. A space where silence is allowed. A space where trust can grow again.

Peer support is not a substitute for psychiatric professional care. It is a complement.

Our professional team provides support with psychiatric knowledge, experience, and professional responsibility. Peers bring an additional perspective: the perspective of a person who has gone through difficult inner times themselves and has gained orientation from it.

Neither is in competition with the other.

They complement each other.

Because mental health support needs professionalism. And it needs relationship. Sometimes it also needs someone who can show through their own experience: I don’t know exactly how it is for you. But I know that such paths can be difficult. And that change remains possible.

Peer support can be helpful when a person feels alone with what they are experiencing. When hope seems far away. When trust in help is difficult. Or when previous words are not enough to describe what is happening inside.

Peers can encourage without pressure.

They can listen without rushing to judge.

They can support without sugarcoating.

That is sometimes very valuable. Especially in times when a person can hardly hold themselves together.

We ensure that peer support always remains respectful and careful.

The peers’ own experience is not the focus. The focus is the person being supported. Their situation. Their pace. Their dignity.

It is not about comparing stories. It is not about saying: "I made it, so you can too."

It’s not that simple.

It is about being there. With experience. With patience. With an understanding that sometimes needs few words.

Jirka Farren Fey (pronouns: it/him)

We are called Jirka, are queer and many — which means we live with many inner persons in the same head.

As peers, we work with our own affectedness, our life experience — just as with the experiences of our peer colleagues, our close ones and relatives, the participants of our self-help groups, and our clients.

We know what it is like to fight a lifelong, ongoing battle. To stumble from one crisis to the next and have to keep going even though you can no longer. And we also know what it is like to slowly make progress: to be able to shape relationships more according to your own wishes for the first time, to gradually dismantle excessive performance patterns — and step by step build a life worth living for us.

We listen, share about ourselves, offer understanding and a shame-free space for emotions, life situations, and overwhelm. Our basic attitude: There is no right way to shape recovery — only your own. We support finding, shaping, and walking that path.

Focus areas: Dissociative identity structure, complex trauma-related burdens (especially from childhood and attachment trauma), queerness (especially trans identity, non-binarity, aroace spectrum), acute crisis support and assistance with conflicts involving caregivers. As relatives, we also bring experience with neurodiversity — especially the autism spectrum.

If you are interested in peer support or unsure whether this form of support might be suitable, please feel free to contact us.

We will look together at what is helpful in your situation.