In the last 20 years, research on the inclusion of peer support within mental health settings has burgeoned, paralleling the broad adoption of service user inclusion within policy as a moral imperative and universally beneficial. Despite the seemingly progressive impetus behind inclusion, increasingly peer support workers talk of exhaustion working within mental health systems, the slow rate of change to oppressive values and practices, and ongoing experiences of workplace exclusion. Such experiences suggest differences in the way in which inclusion is produced across different stakeholder groups and contexts. In this article, we adopt Bacchi’s ‘what’s the problem represented to be?’ approach to identify how mental health research, often understood as an a-political activity, produces versions of inclusion. We argue current research predominantly produces inclusion as ‘assimilation’ and ‘integration’. We use critical inclusion, mental health, and survivor scholarship to evaluate the effects these productions have for peer support and peer support workers, finding that both problematise peer support workers and those seeking support. We consider possibilities for more liberatory productions of inclusion, building on the notion of inclusion as ‘co-optation’. Our analysis points to the need for researchers to engage with an uncomfortable reflexivity to enable more emancipatory possibilities regarding inclusion and peer support.

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the sanist microaggressions that peer workers face working in mental health and proposes ways in which peer workers and institutions may begin to challenge sanist practices within the sector. Design/methodology/approach The paper is written as a personal narrative. It explores a “moment” in the life of the author as a peer support worker. Findings Peer workers are often faced with sanist microaggressions on the job which can significantly affect peer workers’ capacity over time. Sharing our stories, identifying points of resistance and working collectively to challenge microaggressions are important to peer worker survival within the mental health system. Organisations that train or employ peer workers should be aware of sanist microaggressions and learn how to strategically respond to them. Originality/value The paper documents the experiences of the author. There is limited academic literature documenting peer worker experience of microaggressions.

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The personal/professional dichotomy, present within dominant notions of professional boundaries, is an ongoing source of tension within social work. Peer workers, given their positioning as both service users and workers, are uniquely placed to contribute to pre-existing efforts in unsettling this dichotomy. Our analysis, informed by dialogic sharing and theorising with fifteen peer support workers, alongside post-humanist and critical mental health approaches, considers the oppressive effects of enacting a personal/professional dichotomy within mental health settings, and conversely, the emancipatory potential of unsettling the dichotomy. Rather than conceptualising such events as boundary ‘crossings’, ‘incursions’ or ‘transgressions’, we suggest (re)imagining professional boundaries as multiple, enacted through ever-shifting socio-material relations. Our analysis supports pre-existing calls for a relational ethic of social work and highlights how lived experience and post-humanism can support the discipline’s commitment to anti-oppressive practices. We recommend further research, informed by lived experience, to explore the complex relations that constitute boundary practices and their effects for both social workers and service users.

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