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At 19, Michael was living with psychosis - hearing voices, seeing things other people couldn’t, and trying to hold himself together while training as a nurse.

In this episode, he takes us right into the moment it all collided: on a hospital ward, caring for someone who couldn’t move or speak, while the voices in his head were telling him to end his life. It was the night he lost nursing and, for a while, lost himself too.

Michael speaks honestly about what came next: the secrecy, the stigma, the friendships that disappeared, and the deep depression that followed. He also talks about identity, including what it meant to come out as a gay man in Ireland, at a time when shame and silence were already crushing him.

But this is also a recovery story - and peer support sits right at the heart of it.

Michael explains what personal recovery really means when symptoms don’t just disappear. The daily work. The coping tools. The planning. The small choices that keep you one step ahead. And he shares how peer support works in practice - not as “telling your story”, but finding the overlap between two lives and building trust from there.

We also get into lived experience as knowledge - why peer work can’t be supervised using a clinical model, and why the heart of peer support is equality, relationship, and real-world connection.

Most of all, Michael leaves you with one clear message:

Just because you live with psychosis, your life is not over.

Listen if you’re interested in: psychosis, voice-hearing, stigma, identity, personal recovery, WRAP, and what peer support looks like when it’s done properly.

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk

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In this deeply honest episode of Shoulder to Shoulder, Cate is joined by Louise Nix, who reflects on the first moments of peer connection, how they helped her begin to heal, and how they led her into peer support roles.

Louise shares her story of growing up with domestic abuse, to surviving an abusive relationship, to reaching a point of despair where life felt unbearable. She describes how finding faith was a turning point for her, helping to restore a sense of worth and hope at a time when she felt lost.

Years later, after the traumatic birth of her first child, Louise experienced postnatal psychosis, a frightening loss of reality followed by compulsory hospitalisation. Upon leaving hospital, there was little space to process what had happened.

This is where peer support enters the story. Louise reflects on the first moments of peer connection, felt in the quiet power of another mother offering a cup of tea, listening without judgement, and saying you’re doing okay. That human connection became the foundation for healing.

As a peer support worker, Louise now sits in the space between patients and professionals — breaking down the “them and us” divide, challenging stigma, and showing that recovery is possible, even after profound crisis.

This conversation explores why peer based approaches within mental health services matter so deeply, especially for people who have been traumatised within these services. Louise speaks about peer support as hope in action: “I was where you are, and now I’m here.”

You’ll hear about:

• Surviving postnatal psychosis and inpatient trauma
• The lasting impact of restraint and loss of dignity
• Why silence and stigma delay recovery
• Finding healing through informal and formal peer support
• Becoming a peer support worker after lived experience
• Peer support as hope, not fixing
• Challenging the “them and us” culture in mental health
• A message of reassurance for anyone who feels afraid or ashamed

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Show notes & resources:

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk

Send us a text

Dr Justin S. Bell is a community psychologist based in the US whose work sits in the intersection between lived experience, research, and system design. Justin studies how those in lived-experience roles are recruited, trained, supported, and too often, undervalued.

In this conversation, Justin talks to Cate about what first drew him to his work and why the working conditions for lived-experience professionals matter just as much as the evidence behind their roles.

He shares what he’s learned from years of researching peer workforces: what helps them thrive, what leads to burnout, and what organisations get wrong when they try to add peer roles without changing the culture.

We explore the state of peer support in the US and Justin reflects on the structural barriers that prevent peer workers from doing the work they’re trained for. Woven through it all is Justin’s belief that recovery isn’t a service, it’s a relationship, and that lived-experience leadership is central to any system that wants to be humane, hopeful and effective.

It’s a conversation about evidence, equity, and designing systems that make recovery possible.

You’ll hear about:

• Justin’s journey into community psychology and recovery research
• The realities of peer workforces in the US and what the data shows
• Working conditions, burnout, boundaries, and sustainability
• What organisations misunderstand about peer roles
• Why evidence alone won’t change systems but culture can
• Lessons from US models that the UK and elsewhere could learn from
• How lived experience reshapes research, practice and leadership
• What gives Justin hope for the future of peer support

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Show notes & resources:

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk

Listen now on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

With-you consultancy: www.with-you.co.uk