The shared psychoeducation experience, a founder notion which is requiring an updated consensus
Since the ’90s, professionals working in the psychosocial field in Quebec have had to face the necessity to resolve a number of issues pertaining to the specificity of their professional contribution. Very little scientific research has been produced in relation to the interrelation between the psychoeducator’s specific identity and shared experience, the latter being considered a foundational notion of this academic discipline and professional vocation. To what extent does the concept of shared experience consist the foundation of the psychoeducator’s specific identity? To investigate this very question, a mixed sequential exploratory research design was employed. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 21 members of the Ordre des psychoéducateurs et psychoéducatrices du Québec (OPPQ) and led to the development of a questionnaire addressing psychoeducation, filled by 462 members. Most of the participants consider that the future of their profession is tied to the recognition of its singularity, characterized by the importance of shared experience. The results indicate that the shared experience used by members of the OPPQ in the performance of their professional duties does not correspond to the constitutive elements of its initial definition. They reveal that the singularity of the psychoeducator’s intervention does not solely depend on the notion of shared experience. In brief, the preceding consensus which regarded the notion of shared experience as vital to the psychoeducator’s intervention now appears close to breaking point.