Self-Help Group Therapy

Some 80 percent of Americans want to change their habits so as to improve their health. At any given time, 35 percent of Americans are attempting to lose weight but only 5 percent have any long-term success. Some 47 million Americans smoke cigarettes with over half wanting to quit. Approximately 14 million adults abuse alcohol and 13 million individuals experiment with addictive drugs. Many desire to quit their harmful habits. But all too often, dieters fail, smokers continue smoking, and substance abusers can’t break the grip of addiction. Most individuals mobilize their inner resources for change within supportive relationships.

The self-help group, a specific type of social support system, plays an important role in health enrichment for many. These groups, growing in popularity and success, require for membership that each individual suffer from the same illness, addiction or other crisis. Self-help groups dramatically illustrate the key role of social support in creating and sustaining lifestyle change. When resolve is bolstered in supportive group settings, individuals can mobilize their inner resources for behavioral change.

Why Self-Help Groups are Effective
Three principles explain the transformative power of self-help group participation: 1) the peer principle, 2) the experience enrichment principle and 3) the helper-therapy principle.

The peer principle asserts that because they have experienced a problem, they can help in ways that an outside expert or family member cannot. Peers bring more empathic understanding from their own personal experience. This common experience (the like-me factor) forges an empathic bond of understanding between group members. Patients with cancer seek peers to talk about things not possible with their family or doctor. And family caretakers of mental patients often prefer other caretakers as confidantes. Those with firsthand experience bring more self-disclosure and greater empathy; both increase potential effectiveness as a helper. The most effective helpers are “wounded helpers.”

Many people feel embarrassed with a crisis or chronic illness. Opening up to others enduring the same kind of pain, suffering, stigma or loss becomes easier because their wound puts them in the same boat. Individuals from diverse backgrounds can forge a tight circle of support. Where else in America can a person from a park-bench interact as an equal with a person from Park Avenue?

The experience enrichment principle asserts that each member’s experience is a valuable asset that can enhance the adaptive skills of all when shared with others. Organizations devote some time in meetings for members to tell their stories. When experiences are shared, skills are enhanced, options become multiplied, hopes born and motivation strengthened. Self-help groups serve as “cultural incubators” for increasing the pool of adaptive resources and survival skills. Self-help groups give substance to the expression “two heads are better than one,” as veteran survivors mentor newer members.

They provide an adaptive training program that empowers members with chronic conditions, addictions, or loss. Self-help groups become living laboratories that are less stigmatizing and more supportive than expert systems.

The helper-therapy principle asserts that the act of helping another heals the helper more than the person being helped. As giving and receiving are exchanged, helping another unfreezes one’s fear and self-absorption, replacing it with the positive emotion called the “helper’s high.” The “helper’s high” is a pleasurable physical and emotional sensation of energy, warmth, and euphoria that results from helping others. An empathic bond dissolves the boundary between individuals. It is what you give in a relationship which benefits you more than what you receive. Local self-help group clearinghouses can often help you find or form a group.For other online support groups and resources, consult the http://www.mentalhelp.net/selfhelp