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Self-Help Groups

A self-help group is an assembly of individuals with the same potentially stigmatizing challenge, who share experiential knowledge to benefit its members. These groups are utilized to empower and educate people with communication challenges and/or their families. They often focus on experiential facets of a problem or condition that might get less attention in traditional therapy for communication disorders and often serve as a supplement to traditional therapy. Self-help groups have become more popular with their promotion through the formation of national associations, professional recognition of their utility, and technology to provide more accessibility of information to like-minded people. To understand the breadth of self-help groups, this entry discusses how the concept of self-help groups has evolved, related debatable topics, and the variety of activities that have been considered to be self-help groups.

Terminology

The term self-help refers to individual efforts to help him- or herself outside of the context of professional help. The term group in this context means two or more people. In a broad sense, a self-help group is two or more people with the same disorder or condition who aim to better themselves by supporting each other.

Authors have made various distinctions between a self-help group and other terms such as support group, mutual aid group, and peer support group. Thomasina Borkman, for example, believes that generic use of the term support group fails to recognize the differences between a self-help/mutual aid group and the more narrow definition of a support group, which is managed by a professional as opposed to someone with the problem or condition. She further differentiates a self-help group as a subcategory of a mutual aid group, while other authors use these terms and peer support group interchangeably.

The term self-help group has been loosely used to refer to the organization (e.g., as in the sentence, “The self-help group formed last year”), the individuals who participate (e.g., as in, “My self-help group likes to meet for dinner”), and the meeting (e.g., As in, “I attended the self-help group”).

As interest in self-help groups continues, so do the types of other in-person gatherings. In addition, nontraditional gatherings evolved with the popularity of the Internet in the early 1990s. People with communication disorders found and connected with others online. The following sections discuss some of the ways that people have been meeting and communicating with each other in-person and online.

In-Person Activities

In-person self-help activities vary based on a number of factors. These include the length of time, frequency, number of participants, variability of location, and who produces it.

Meetings

Although the term self-help group has been used to refer to all self-help activities, it is also used to refer to a self-help group meeting. These meetings typically are 1–2 hr long; are smaller in size (usually between 2 and 20 people); meet weekly, semi-monthly, or monthly; are organized locally; and are held at the same location each meeting.

Regional Workshops

Self-help regional workshops are typically a 1- or 2-day event. People from the host city and its surrounding areas attend. Attendance is usually greater than at a self-help group and less than at a self-help conference (see next subsection), with approximately 20–100 people in attendance. Self-help regional workshops can have one session at a time for the same audience or simultaneous sessions to cater to different people and different interests. In this scenario, there are general sessions and regular or breakout sessions. General sessions are for all attendees and are used for opening comments, closing comments, guest speakers, and/or open-microphone sessions in which any one of the attendees can comment to the general audience. Regular or breakout sessions are led by one or more speakers or a panel of speakers and run simultaneously with each other. These sessions are used to group people based on who they are (e.g., child/adult with the communication disorder, parent, sibling, professional), what topic interests them, or to have smaller groups for more interaction. Self-help regional workshops may be produced by an organizations’ national headquarters, a local chapter or local organization, or a combination. They may be an annual event for some local organizations; for others, it may be once every few years or a one-time event. Self-help regional workshops have also been referred to as mini-conferences, especially when organized by a national organization to supplement their larger annual, self-help conference.

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