• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to content
  • Skip to footer

Susannah Fox

I help people navigate health and technology.

  • Home
  • Writing
    • greatest hits
    • beauty and wonder
    • demographics
    • featured commenters
    • key people
    • peer-to-peer health care
    • positive patterns
    • public Q&A
    • trends & principles
  • Research
    • Digital Health Practices Among Teens and Young Adults: Key Findings
    • Fact sheet: teens and young adults, social media, online health resources
    • Fact sheet: differences between young women and young men in their use of social media, online health resources
    • Fact sheet: differences between LGBTQ and straight youth in their use of social media, online health resources
  • About me
    • Now
    • Curriculum vitae
  • Upcoming events

Esther Perel on the power of peers

July 16, 2018 By Susannah Fox Leave a Comment

Esther Perel on the power of peers

I was thrilled to hear psychotherapist Esther Perel cite my “just in time someone like me” insight on her podcast, Where Should We Begin (Season 2, Episode 4).

Here is the one-minute excerpt so you, too, can hear her excellent advice:

https://susannahfox.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/Where-Should-We-Begin-S2-Ep4.m4a

And here, again, is the story of how I learned that immortal phrase:

In 2005, I took a call from someone who worked at Planned Parenthood. He wanted the conversation to be off the record, so I didn’t even write down his name, which is a shame because that conversation changed the direction of my career.

The caller had seen media coverage of Pew Internet’s health research, probably the Health Information Online report, which included the finding that 11% of internet users in the U.S. had gone online to get sexual health information. I remember hearing disappointment in his voice when he learned that we didn’t have data on teens since that is an important demographic group for Planned Parenthood. Our conversation turned to search engine optimization and other ways to capture the attention of people looking online for health information.

Then we started talking about the real opportunity we both saw emerging online: the ability for people to connect with others who share their same concerns, same life stage, same outlook. I wrote down one sentence in my notes, which I found yesterday while cleaning my office:

 “Teens want a just in time someone like me.”

The idea is that people don’t think about their health until they need to and then they want to not only connect with good information, they want it tailored to fit their needs and circumstances. A teenage girl making a birth control decision may want to get advice, for example, not only from another teenage girl, but from someone in her neighborhood, if possible.

More generally, people often don’t want to hear about “usual” treatments or solutions. They want to know if it’s the right one for someone like themselves, whether that means someone who is deeply religious or totally unconnected to faith, someone who lives in the Bronx or in rural Montana, living with a specific genetic variant or not. All of these aspects of life play into our health decisions.

“Just in time someone like me” captured the spirit of the self-care and peer support movement that Tom Ferguson, my mentor, had been sharing with me for years. But it was pithy and it grabbed me in a way that no other phrase ever had. Once I wrote it down that day in 2005, it was stuck in my brain. And like when you learn a new word and then see it everywhere, I saw examples of people seeking a “just in time someone like me” in every research project I conducted from then on.

Share this:

  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Google+ (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Tumblr (Opens in new window)

Filed Under: peer-to-peer health care Tagged With: Esther Perel, peer counseling, Peer To Peer, peer-to-peer healthcare, sexual health, teens

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Before Footer

popular posts

  • Blue Button's North Star
  • How to judge an innovation
  • Hypothesis generator

Recent Comments

  • Susannah Fox on A taxonomy of health data: “Thank you, Gary! The conversation is never over and I'm grateful for your comment. (If you…” Feb 16, 06:15
  • Gary Wolf on A taxonomy of health data: “Really glad to read all these comments. Sara Riggare (http://www.riggare.se/) pointed me here after learning I'd missed it; she's been…” Feb 15, 18:58
  • Susannah Fox on A taxonomy of health data: “Wow! Thank you! Everyone, click through on Sweeney's Data Map when you have a moment -- lots…” Feb 7, 08:49

Footer

Follow me on Twitter

My Tweets

Topics

  • Beauty and Wonder
  • Demographics
  • Key People
  • Participatory Research
  • Peer-to-Peer Health Care
  • Positive Patterns
  • Public Q&A
  • Trends and Principles

Don't miss a post

Enter your email address and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Explore

Copyright Susannah Fox © 2019 · WordPress · Log in

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.