Abstract

not-yet-known not-yet-known not-yet-known unknown Personal recovery narratives in psychiatry have long been used to reduce public stigma. Nowadays, more and more such narratives are shared on social media and collected by content creators and journalists often without basic education in psychology. Although telling one’s story has positive effects on the person sharing, the question of adverse negative effects has been neglected so far. We investigated the impact, whether positive or negative, of telling one’s story in a narrative podcast with a wide audience. Participants (N = 27) were recruited from the guest pool of Les Maux Bleus podcast. They completed an online quantitative and qualitative ad hoc 15-question survey assessing the positive effects of their participation on their well-being, and asking for potential adverse effects they might have encountered after their participation. A third of the sample reported adverse effects of low-to-moderate severity, and 6 persons in the sample stated they felt the need to look for emotional and/or psychological assistance after their participation despite a very precautious process before and after recording. Those results highlight the necessity to elaborate guidelines for content creators collecting and broadcasting such narratives to make them beneficial and avoid potentially severe adverse events occurring.