Disclosure of lived experience of mental illness in training: Reasons for disclosure

Students in mental health (MH) professions often face MH symptoms themselves related to the stress of graduate training and have been shown to benefit from supportive mentoring. Little is known, however, about trainees who already have a mental illness, and how best to help them succeed. Snowball sampling was used to survey 35 MH professionals with lived experience of mental illness (LE), also known as "prosumers." The survey included questions about participants' past disclosure about mental illness when they were in a training role. Questions were also asked about participants' experience supervising or teaching students who had disclosed LE. The survey included quantitative and qualitative data. Of participants who disclosed experiences of mental illness during past training, most disclosed to a clinical supervisor, with the most common reason for disclosure being to seek social support. A majority (83%) of those who endorsed having a trainee disclose to them were "out" about their own LE at the time. The majority of participants (78%) indicated they would like accessible examples of how others had dealt with trainee disclosure to use as a tool in working with trainees. We conclude with implications for future research and resources on this topic. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).