Across the world, communities are facing a crisis of connection. Rates of anxiety, depression, and loneliness are at historic highs, while access to professional mental health care remains limited (U.S. Surgeon General, 2023). On college campuses in particular, the gap between need and capacity continues to widen; students report unprecedented stress, disconnection, and difficulty accessing support (Xiao et al., 2017). In this landscape, peer support offers an underutilized but powerful pathway toward prevention and connection (Puschner et al., 2025). Among the many approaches that can inform peer support, the Solution-Focused model stands out as a natural fit—hopeful, brief, evidence-based, and teachable—providing a framework for meaningful conversations that strengthen agency, resilience, and community (Beyebach et al., 2021).
The Case for Solution-Focused Peer Support
Over the past decade, the prevalence and severity of student mental-health concerns have climbed while help-seeking remains stubbornly low, widening the gap between need and campus capacity (Caporale-Berkowitz, 2022; Xiao et al., 2017). Many students, often away from established supports for the first time, face loneliness and isolation that erode well-being and academic performance. Loneliness itself carries health risks comparable to smoking and obesity (Cacioppo & Cacioppo, 2018). In this context, a prevention-first approach that equips students with usable, everyday skills is essential.
Solution-Focused Peer Support offers that practical path. Grounded in Solution-Focused Brief Therapy (SFBT), it provides a concise and teachable approach to communication, one that helps peers recognize their capacity to act, rediscover what sustains them, and shape their hopes into a plan they can implement immediately (Lutz, 2014, 2025). The SFBT evidence base is extensive and international, with outcome studies conducted across 33 countries and multiple sectors, including psychotherapy, education, and community development, demonstrating the utility and adaptability of the approach (Beyebach, Martínez-González, Rodríguez-Morejón, Martínez-Molina, & López-Domínguez, 2021). Unlike problem-centric models, the Solution-Focused stance keeps attention on “what’s working,” “what’s possible,” and “what you hope will be different,” questions that help activate agency and translate hope into an actionable plan (Lutz, 2025).
Peer programs employing this proactive, skills-first approach demonstrate measurable benefits. In a randomized controlled trial with university students, an online peer support program improved psychological flexibility and reduced stress, anxiety, and depressive symptoms, highlighting the promise of scalable, peer-delivered approaches (Grégoire, Fortin, & Bélanger, 2024). Implemented early, such as during orientation or first-year seminars, Solution-Focused Peer Support can expand the front door to care, normalize help-seeking, and strengthen everyday networks that catch challenges before they become crises (Caporale-Berkowitz, 2022; Xiao et al., 2017).
Defining Peer Support
At its heart, peer support is a relational practice rooted in mutuality and shared humanity. It involves two people engaging in listening, reflection, and curiosity—each giving and receiving help, and each transformed by the interaction. Unlike traditional therapy or advice-giving, peer support emphasizes connection over correction and presence over prescription. It refers to the mutual exchange of emotional and practical support between individuals who identify as peers based on shared or similar experiences.
The underlying premise is that people who have faced, endured, or overcome adversity can offer meaningful encouragement, understanding, and hope to others navigating similar challenges. Peer support can occur informally and naturally, or it can be organized through structured peer-led programs delivered individually or in groups. Conversations often center on everyday struggles, including relationships, academic stress, uncertainty, and personal growth. Through empathy, active listening, and genuine curiosity, peers foster a sense of belonging, validation, and resilience. In
contrast to hierarchical helping relationships, this reciprocal structure fosters equality and empowerment, enabling each participant to become both a giver and a receiver of hope. Research underscores that peer-led mental health interventions are not only effective but also culturally adaptive, cost-efficient, and sustainable when properly supported (Chow et al., 2025).
Solution-Focused Peer Conversations Promote Vicarious Resilience
One of the most transformative aspects of Solution-Focused Peer Support is the concept of reciprocity. In this model, participants alternate roles—one listens, one speaks, and both reflect. This exchange equalizes power, promotes empathy, and fosters vicarious resilience.
Beyond improving student well-being, this reciprocal model sustains those who offer help. Each conversation provides an opportunity for vicarious resilience—a positive transformation experienced by helpers who witness the resilience of others. First described among Colombian therapists working with survivors of political violence, vicarious resilience emerges when empathy and connection foster growth not only in those recovering from trauma but also in those accompanying them (Hernández, Gangsei, & Engstrom, 2007).
In a traditional helping encounter, the professional may absorb stories of pain and trauma, which can lead to compassion fatigue. In contrast, a solution-focused dialogue highlights how people have persevered, adapted, and grown in the face of adversity. Each question — such as “How did you endure?” or “When were things even slightly better, what was different?” invites the helper to notice the other’s courage and agency.
Solution-focused conversations naturally nurture this process. By listening for strengths, perseverance, and adaptability rather than for symptoms, peer supporters internalize hopeful narratives. The act of noticing another’s courage and capacity becomes restorative, shifting emotional energy from despair toward shared hope. Each dialogue reinforces confidence in human strength and renews purpose for both participants (Riessman, 1965; Davidson et al., 2006; Puschner et al., 2025).
In essence, Solution-Focused Peer Support transforms empathy into shared resilience. It makes visible the everyday acts of strength that might otherwise be overshadowed by struggle, turning each encounter into an opportunity for mutual growth, gratitude, and renewal. Because every participant is both a potential helper and receiver, this model scales naturally and strengthens entire communities of care (Puschner et al., 2025).
Clarifying Boundaries and Scope of Peer Support
Effective peer support depends on clear boundaries and structured supervision. Peers are not clinicians and do not provide diagnosis, therapy, or crisis intervention. Their role is relational, offering empathy, shared experience, and encouragement within defined limits. Training should include recognizing when a conversation moves beyond the peer role and how to refer individuals to professional services. Research underscores that supervision, ongoing consultation, and institutional support are essential safeguards that preserve the integrity of peer programs and prevent role confusion or emotional overload (Chinman et al., 2014; Davidson et al., 2006; Repper & Carter, 2011; Solomon, 2004).
Solution-Focused Peer Support: Building Preventive Campus Cultures
Embedding Solution-Focused Peer Support across universities or organizations represents more than a program; it signals a cultural shift. When listening, curiosity, and mutual respect become everyday practices, communities evolve into networks of care.
Such cultures are preventive by design. They reduce stigma, normalize help-seeking, and strengthen the protective factors—connection, belonging, purpose—that buffer against distress. Through short, structured conversations, peers can build bridges where isolation once stood. They learn to notice progress rather than deficits, to affirm strengths rather than diagnose weaknesses. Over time, these micro-conversations accumulate into macro-level change.
The scalability of the Solution-Focused model makes it uniquely suited for today’s needs. It can be delivered through online courses, hybrid workshops, or self-paced learning modules, ensuring accessibility regardless of geographical location or resource availability.
Solution-Focused Peer Support Exercises
Reciprocity thrives on shared noticing—of joy, of effort, of what works. When both participants listen, reflect, and act from a place of curiosity and respect, healing becomes a collective act. These exercises invite you to pause, observe, and strengthen that shared growth—transforming everyday exchanges into powerful forces for resilience and connection.
Exercise 1: Commencing with Competencies
1. What did you most enjoy this week?
2. What else did you enjoy?
3. What did you most enjoy about this time?
4. How did you make it happen?
5. Who noticed when you were enjoying this?
6. What would they most appreciate about seeing you experiencing this joy? What else?
7. How confident are you, from 1-10, 10 being the best and one the opposite, that you will continue doing more of what gives you joy?
8. Working the scale
a. What keeps the number from being lower? What else?
b. Is this number good enough?
c. If not, what is one thing you can do your best to do to raise your number?
d. If it is good enough, what do you want to keep doing? What else?
Exercise 2: Best Hopes and Imagining a Satisfying Week
1. Imagine waking up on a Sunday morning and looking back at the week and saying, I had a satisfying week. What would you have done? What else?
2. What do you know creates a satisfying week for you?
3. What have you tried to create satisfying weeks for yourself?
4. Who would notice when you had a satisfying week?
5. What would they notice you doing? What else?
6. Suppose 10 means you are very satisfied with your week, and 1 is the opposite. Where are you now?
7. What keeps the number from being lower? What else?
8. What would be a good enough number?
9. What would you be doing at that number? What else?
10. Supposing your number increases by one point, what would you do differently?
11. How confident are you, from 1–10, that you can take one step toward creating a satisfying week?
The Role of a Solution-Focused Mindset
Dr. Anne Lutz’s The Solution-Focused Mindset for Anxiety and Depression (New Harbinger, 2025) provides a practical foundation for teaching these principles. Drawing from decades of SFBT research, it translates theory into tools that peer supporters can apply immediately. The book demonstrates how to transform problem-saturated narratives into hopeful, action-oriented dialogue through exercises on scaling, noticing progress, and activating agency. Used alongside structured peer-support training, The Solution-Focused Mindset for Anxiety and Depression equips both facilitators and participants with language that connects, frameworks that empower, and a mindset that inspires sustained change.
Amid rising disconnection on campuses, Solution-Focused Peer Support offers a practical, prevention-oriented approach suited to everyday university life. Brief, reciprocal conversations carry evidence-informed practice out of the clinic and into residence halls, classrooms, and student groups. When institutions introduce this model at key entry points—such as orientation—and sustain it through peer-leader development and supervision, access to timely support expands. Stigma recedes. Core protective factors—belonging, purpose, and agency—take hold. The result is a cultural shift: attention moves from pathology to capacity, progress becomes visible in small steps, and resilience strengthens across the campus community.
References Solution-Focused Peer Support
References
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Cacioppo, J. T., & Cacioppo, S. (2018). Loneliness: Human nature and the need for social connection. W. W. Norton & Company.
Caporale-Berkowitz, N. A. (2022). Let’s teach peer support skills to all college students: Here’s how and why. Journal of American College Health, 70(7), 1921–1925. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2020.1865978
Chinman, M., George, P., Dougherty, R. H., Daniels, A. S., Ghose, S. S., Swift, A., & Delphin-Rittmon, M. E. (2014). Peer support services for individuals with serious mental illnesses: Assessing the evidence. Psychiatric Services, 65(4), 429–441. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ps.201300244
Chow, C. M., Yin, L., & Wong, H. Y. (2025). Peer-led mental health interventions in higher education: A systematic review. Journal of Mental Health Education, 45(2), 115–129.* [verify publication details once available]*
Davidson, L., Chinman, M., Sells, D., & Rowe, M. (2006). Peer support among adults with serious mental illness: A report from the field. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 32(3), 443–450. https://doi.org/10.1093/schbul/sbj043
Grégoire, S., Fortin, M., & Bélanger, C. (2024). An online peer support program to improve mental health among university students: A randomized controlled trial. Journal of American College Health, 72(7), 2001–2011. https://doi.org/10.1080/07448481.2023.2230567 [verify DOI]
Hernández, P., Gangsei, D., & Engstrom, D. (2007). Vicarious resilience: A new concept in work with those who survive trauma. Family Process, 46(2), 229–241. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1545-5300.2007.00206.x
Lutz, A. B. (2014). Learning solution-focused therapy: An illustrated guide. American Psychiatric Publishing.
Lutz, A. B. (2025). The solution-focused mindset for anxiety and depression: A workbook to manage emotions, harness your strengths, and feel better now. New Harbinger Publications.
Puschner, B., Nakku, J., Hiltensperger, R., Wolf, P., Adler Ben-Dor, I., Bugeiga, F., … Slade, M. (2025). Effectiveness of peer support for people with severe mental health conditions in high-, middle-, and low-income countries: Multicentre randomised controlled trial. The British Journal of Psychiatry. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1192/bjp.2025.10299
Repper, J., & Carter, T. (2011). A review of the literature on peer support in mental health services. Journal of Mental Health, 20(4), 392–411. https://doi.org/10.3109/09638237.2011.583947
Riessman, F. (1965). The “helper” therapy principle. Social Work, 10(2), 27–32.
Solomon, P. (2004). Peer support/peer-provided services: Underlying processes, benefits, and critical ingredients. Psychiatric Rehabilitation Journal, 27(4), 392–401. https://doi.org/10.2975/27.2004.392.401
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Xiao, H., Carney, D. M., Youn, S. J., Janis, R. A., Castonguay, L. G., Hayes, J. A., & Locke, B. D. (2017). Are we in crisis? National mental health and treatment trends in college counseling centers. Psychological Services, 14(4), 407–415. https://doi.org/10.1037/ser0000130
