Self-help Movement Research Articles

"Antipsychiatry" and "Consumerism": Perspectives and Definitions

"Antipsychiatry" and "Consumerism": Perspectives and Definitions

“Warriors for the Working Day”: Shakespeare's Professionals

In the last several years, Shakespeare's plays have been employed as manuals for professional development by both corporations and the American military. Social and political scientists problematize the professional self-help movement as an example of neo-liberal government that promises liberty and prosperity while at the same time, and ironically, requiring despotic and divisive governmental arts in order to achieve its ends. In the sixteenth century, the multiple forms of government aimed at producing a civil population can be viewed as similarly working to rule through freedom and indeed the imperative to develop oneself professionally, to work and thus to thrive with and for the commonwealth, was increasingly prevalent in both political policy and in the privately published professionalization manuals that proliferated in the period. While a favourite among twenty-first century self-help writers, the second tetralogy troubles the early modern and pre-liberal ethos regarding human productivity, professionalization, government, and freedom.

Bathsheba's Breast: Women, Cancer and History (review)

Reviewed by: Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer and History Mindy A. Schwartz Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer and History. By James S. Olson. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Univ. Press, 2005. Pp. 320. $26.95 (cloth), $26.95 (paper). This remarkable book, originally published in 2002 and recently reissued in paperback, probes the history of breast cancer, unquestionably one of the most dreaded diseases affecting women. The author, James S. Olson, is both the chair of the History Department at Sam Houston State University and a cancer survivor. In his introduction, we learn that he contemplated this book during his own personal odyssey with cancer and its treatment. The book examines breast cancer as both medical condition and social phenomenon. Although heart disease is a far more prevalent cause of death in women and lung cancer has a greater case mortality, women uniformly and disproportionately fear breast cancer, largely due to the fact that, in addition to being a prevalent and life threatening disease, breast cancer involves potential disfigurement and a broad assault on one's self esteem and sexuality. The book traces the chronology of diagnosis and treatment of breast cancer. Both Hippocrates and Galen knew this disorder. Though no longer thought to be due to an excess of "black bile," the cause of breast cancer remains mysterious to this day. Olson traces the progress in our understanding of this disorder through the traditional landmarks of medical history: developments in surgical anesthesia and antiseptic technique, the discovery of x-rays and radiology, radioactivity and radiation therapy, and advances in pathology and staging. His grasp of the relevant medical issues is comprehensive, and his chronology provides the framework through which he interweaves the current controversies, including the rise and fall of hormonal therapy, breast implants, environmental carcinogens, pesticides, and, most recently, ecogenetics. What makes this book so compelling is Olson's ability to communicate the experience of having this affliction through the cases of famous (and infamous) women throughout time. The book is a veritable who's who of women with breast cancer. It includes unforgettable women such as Dr. Jerri Nielsen, the emergency physician in Antarctica who excised her own tumor and then went on to treat herself with adjuvant chemotherapy, as well as such notable women as Anne of Austria (mother of Louis XIV), George Washington's mother, Adolf Hitler's mother, and Abigail Adams (daughter of John and Abigail Adams and the sister of president John Quincy Adams.) Olson makes their situations memorable and accessible to a modern audience. His descriptions of surgical treatment in the pre-analgesic and pre-antibiotic era (when the operation required a male physician with brute strength and a lightning fast pace) are unforgettable and harrowing. Olson leads us through the unexplored territory of infamous diseases in modernity. Of late, a handful of diseases—breast cancer among them—have become [End Page 147] lightning rods for larger a social movements. What started as a few demanding and entitled patients with breast cancer has evolved into a readily identifiable cause involving power, presence, money, and politics. It is clearly as effective as is its more controversial counterpart Act Up, the highly political organization of the early HIV movement. The effectiveness of the breast cancer lobby, however, reflects the particular attributes of women-run organizations, such as grassroots lobbying, along with local and community networks of family, coworkers, and friends. Olson draws our attention to the evolution of cancer patient labels from "victims" or "sufferers" to the current terminology of "cancer survivors." The ubiquitous (and now mundane) pink ribbons are a testament of this sisterhood of survivors and supporters who relinquish dependency for empowerment. Olson also emphasizes the new and critical roles played by advocacy groups, self-help movements, alternative medicine, and evidence-based practice. At the heart of the book are the controversies around the evolution of surgery. Time has barely diminished the legacy of the character and phenomenon that was William Stewart Halsted. After 100 years, it is still Halsted's eponymous procedure—the radical mastectomy—that remains the standard against which all treatments are measured. Halsted's classic operation removed the breast tissue and the underlying lymph nodes and the pectoralis muscle en...

A Very Critical Look at the Self-Help Movement

A Very Critical Look at the Self-Help Movement

The Self-Help Movement in the Addiction Field—Revisited

The self-help principle has witnessed a recent upsurge in popularity in response to popular movements towards self-care and individual responsibility. It was power-to-the-people social movements in...

Sham slam

SHAM: How the Self-Help Movement Made America Helpless, by Steve Salerno. New York: Crown Publishers, 2005. 288 pp., $24.95 cloth, $13.95 paper.

Beyond clinical trials and narratives: a participatory action research with cancer patient self-help groups

The self-help movement in Hong Kong has been gradually gaining its momentum in recent years. The primary purpose of the research was to give voice to the experiences and views of patients towards cancer care and to influence healthcare providers and policy makers to act on patients’ agendas. Self-help groups and their members are mobilized through the research activities of focus groups, interviews and a patient forum to specify and act on their needs. This article describes the project and the participatory action research (PAR) strategies in the mobilization of, and collaboration with, patient groups in research design, data analysis, and dissemination of findings. The implications on healthcare practice, particularly within an era of reform and restructuring of the healthcare system, are discussed.

Books: Review/Commentary: Circles of Recovery: Self-Help Organizations for Addictions

Circles of Recovery: Self-Help Organizations for Addictions, by Keith Humphreys (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 228 pp., $85 hardcover.It is nearly impossible to discuss self-help/mutual-aid societies without reference to Alcoholics Anonymous (AA). With its more than two million members, international growth, organizational longevity, and adaptation to nearly every conceivable human problem, AA has become the standard with which all other mutual-aid groups are compared. AA's dominance obscures awareness of the large number of mutual-aid societies that preceded it (White, 2001) and the growing number of adjuncts and alternatives to AA.There are four significant trends within the recent literature on addiction recovery mutual-aid societies: 1) the emergence of backlash literature attacking the principles and practices of AA and other Twelve Step programs from both ideological perspectives (Bufe, 1991; Ragge, 1998; Peek & Bufe, 2000) and personal perspectives (Gilliam, 1998; Fransway, 2001); 2) a new body of literature detailing alternatives to AA (Kirkpatrick, 1978, 1981, 1986; Christopher, 1988, 1989, 1992; Trimpey, 1989; Kishline, 1994; Volpicelli & Szalavitz, 2000); 3) growing interest in addiction recovery mutual-aid groups as an international phenomenon (Makela et al., 1996; Special Issue, Contemporary Drug Problems, Volume 23, 1996; Room, 1998; White, in press); and 4) scientific studies evaluating the effectiveness of AA and its alternatives (e.g., Emrick, 1989; Ruzek, 1987; Kaskutas, 1992; Galanter, Egelko & Edwards, 1993; Connors & Dermen, 1996; Humphreys & Klaw, 2001). Two noteworthy texts detail the inner workings of self-help/mutual-aid societies, document what is known of their effectiveness, and outline how helping professionals and government bodies can best work with such groups. The first is Linda Farris Kurtz's Self-Help and Support Groups: A Handbook for Practitioners, and the second, the subject of this review, is Keith Humphreys' just-released Circles of Recovery: Self-Help Organizations for Addictions. Where Kurtz's text focuses on a broad spectrum of self-help societies in the United States, Humphreys' book is international in scope and focused on peer-based addiction recovery support groups.Circles of Recovery opens with a discussion of five conditions that contributed to the rise of modern self-help movements: 1) the growing need to manage chronic health problems; 2) weakened family and kinship networks; 3) recognition of the limitations of professional care; 4) rising consumerism in health and human services; and 5) the immediate benefits many people experience through participation in mutual-aid groups. Although this discussion details important contextual influences, it leaves unanswered the question of why addiction recovery mutual-aid groups catalyzed and continue to remain at the center of the international self-help movement. There are several possible answers. Mutual-aid groups are particularly well suited to respond to stigmatized conditions that have been inadequately addressed through professional interventions, and few groups have been subjected to more sustained contempt and have been less welcomed in traditional service settings than those experiencing chronic alcohol and other drug-related problems. AA provided a means of healing stigma-induced shame while using anonymity as a protective shield against the continued effects of such stigma. The Twelve Steps of AA marked a technological breakthrough in the management of chronic health problems that was easily adapted to numerous other conditions and cultures, and the Twelve Traditions of AA underscored the difficulties of sustaining self-help groups and provided a framework (e.g., singleness of purpose, a decentralized cell structure, avoidance of public controversy) to enhance the resilience of mutual-aid organizations.Humphreys catalogues the rise of addiction recovery mutual-aid groups around the world. …

An activating state and active citizen groups in the German health care system

This paper discusses the question, to what extent concepts of an enabling state are realised in the German health policy and wether they meet active citizens with corresponding competencies. The analysis is based on a review of the literature referring to the promotion and development of the self-help movement and citizen participation in the German health care system. The results show, that since 1999 the following enabling health policy measures were adopted: the promotion of independent patient advisory services and shared decision-making, the enactment of participation rules in the rehabilitation system and the compulsory subsidy for self-help groups, self-help organisations and clearing houses for self-help. The active engagement of the citizens both as co-producers of health on the individual level and as participants in processes of communication and decision-making on the system level is still restricted to a small part of the population. An enabling health policy and a broad citizen participation are still in the beginning, but they have the potential to strengthen each other and to realise synergetic effects. Even though some corresponding institutions were already established and attitudes of the health care professionals start to alter, the question wether the health policy will change from a welfare producing state to an enabling state cannot be answered completely yet.

Revival: The Abbey Theatre, Sinn Féin, the Gaelic League and the Co-operative Movement

This book works against the orthodoxy that the Irish Revival was as a purely mystical affair of high culture characterised by a preoccupation with a backward-looking Celtic spirituality, nostalgia for Gaelic Ireland and an obsessive anti-modern traditionalism. The central argument advanced is that the Irish Revival can be understood as a progressive period that witnessed the co-operation of various self-help movements--the Abbey Theatre, the Gaelic League and the Irish Agricultural Organisation Society--to encourage local modes of material and cultural development. What bound these disparate groups together was their readiness to use traditional cultural forms as the basis for an alternative modernisation project. So successful were these self-help initiatives that they very quickly opened up a rival sphere of influence to parliamentary politics. Much of this activity laid the groundwork for the emergence of Sinn Fein in 1905. With particular reference to important theatre productions of the period, this study traces the connections and overlaps between these radical movements, both at executive and grass roots level, and argues that the self-help idea was crucial to the decolonisation and modernisation of Irish society during the early years of the twentieth century.

Individualization of Society and Religionization of the Individual

The theoretical strategy of sociologists like Ulrich Beck and Zygmunt Bauman employing “individualization” as a key concept to understand the “second modernity” or postmodernity is effective to understand the recent transformation of religiosity in the world. The problematic arises when trying to understand in a coherent way how this individualization and the rise of new religiosity and religion's new role in the public space. This paper attempts to find clues to this problematic by taking up (1) the rise of spirituality concerning death and dying and (2) the growth of spiritual networks through self-help movements. Since the late 1980s, spiritual networks for those facing the crises of death and loss, and for those suffering from addiction and handicap, have increased conspicuously in Japan. This indicates that there is a trend of religionization of individuals who are living in an individualized society. If we broaden our perspective to the whole world, we can also observe the spread of salvation religions in such forms of “fundamentalism” and “cults.” They are proposing to participate in the public space advocating collective religious ties. However, in less distinct ways, those sympathetic with more individualized spirituality are also raising their voices in such agenda as environmental issues and bioethical problems. Individualization of society generates religionization of individuals that is in some manner related to the new forms of participation of religiosity in the public space.

PREVALENCE, ROLE AND FUNCTIONS OF SELF-HELP GROUPS IN HONG KONG

Self-help is a respectable Chinese value. The rapid growth of self-help groups in the field of social welfare in Hong Kong however, is only a recent phenomenon (Chau, 1996; Chow, 1996). Self-help groups for vulnerable populations such as patients with chronic illnesses, the physically disabled, the mentally disabled, single parents, drug abusers, and other client groups mushroomed in the late 1980s. The recognition and support given to self-help groups in the 1990 Social Welfare White Paper and the 1992 Green Paper on Rehabilitation Policies and Services have in part accelerated the development of self-help groups in the last few years. In spite of the rapid growth of self-help groups in Hong Kong, the full potential of utilising self-help groups remains untapped. One of the reasons may be attributed to the lack of systematic research and solid methodological foundations. Little was known about how helpful self-help groups are to members, and what kind of social impact they have brought about. The research component of the selfhelp phenomenon has clearly been left behind by the self-help movement itself. On the other hand, research on self-help groups has been flourishing in Western countries, particularly the United States and Canada (Borkman, 1976; Gartner & Riessman, 1977; Gottlieb, 1982; Kurtz, 1988; Humphreys, 1997; Roberts et al., 1999). There is definitely a need to systematically study the self-help phenomenon in the local context. Against this background and supported by a grant from RGC, this study was carried out from 1 October 1998 to 31 August 2001 with the following objectives.

"I Will Gladly Share with Them My Richer Heritage": Schoolteachers in Frances E. W. Harper's "Iola Leroy" and Charles Chesnutt's "Mandy Oxendine"

Through the figure of the black schoolteacher, Frances E. W. Harper's Iola Leroy, published in 1892, and Charles Chesnutt's novel Mandy Oxendine, unpublished during his life-time but believed to have been written between 1893 and 1896, (1) both reflect on the roles of black leaders in the age of self-uplift. What makes these texts' portrayal of teachers significant is that they reveal part of a conversation about the historical role of black teachers as agents of the self-uplift movement and about the direction of African American communities. The two books diverge in their views of the potential roles for black teachers. Harper's text promotes education as a means of moral and political improvement for black people and teachers as a part of the forefront of that movement. In contrast, Chesnutt's novel high-lights the cultural distance that education, class, and color can create between a teacher and the black community in which he teaches, challenging the notion of representative black leaders. Harper's and Chesnutt's portrayals of schoolteacher figures as nearly white complicates the implications of their texts. By combining the figure of a black schoolteacher with a mulatto character, both writers highlight the tension between communal duty and personal ambition, the very conflict that self-uplift ideology posed to middle-class African Americans. Because the mixed-race figure has the option to pass as white and abandon collective interests entirely, he or she functions as the ultimate symbol of this friction. The choice to become a schoolteacher, a symbol of black leadership, serves as the decisive moment in choosing between these paths. Thus, the merging of teacher and mulatto figure ignites a mediative exploration of self and communal desire. For Harper the pairing initiates a moral polemic to demonstrate that the purpose of self-improvement is to contribute to community advancement. Chesnutt, on the other hand, challenges this notion of an interdependent community in which individual and shared interests intersect in a uniformly negotiable terrain. Indeed, Chesnutt disputes the very idea of a knowable monolithic black community whose needs can be assessed and gratified by paradigmatic black leaders. Harper's and Chesnutt's depiction of mulatto figures as teachers reflects the legacy of education as an integral part of black resistance and self-help movements in the nineteenth century. In an essay entitled A Factor in Human Progress, (2) Harper characterized the role of education within community service movements: The education of the intellect and the training of the morals should go hand-in-hand. The devising brain and the feeling heart should never be divorced, and the question worth asking is not simply, What will education do for us? But, what will it help us to do for others? (Brighter 276) When Harper published this essay in the African Methodist Episcopal Church Review in 1885, many African Americans were increasingly looking to education to solve the problems of African American communities. With the failure of Reconstruction, the increasingly hostile atmosphere of exploitative work conditions, disenfranchisement, segregation, and growing violence led many blacks to look to internal development in the form of various mutual-aid societies, businessmen's organizations, fraternal societies, women's clubs, and church-sponsored social support groups to improve the condition of African American communities. (3) However, as John Hope Franklin and Alfred A. Moss, Jr., have put it, Negroes could be certain of an improved status only in the field of education ... (239). Harper's and Chesnutt's notion of education as a primary means of both self and communal advancement reflects this sentiment. In Iola Leroy, the advantages of a western education allow the title-character to transform from a white pro-slavery advocate to a black community leader. …

Major Milestones in Self-Help Movement

Major Milestones in Self-Help Movement

Expectations of patients with rheumatism from new therapies

The expectation of patients with rheumatism concerning newly developed therapies are described on the basis of the experience of the patients' self-help movement. Most important are the wishes of the patients for healing and for treatment which is safe and without adverse effects. The measures necessary for better implementation of research results in the treatment of patients are described.

Un nouveau modèle de relation entre les malades et la recherche médicale Le cas de l'Association française contre les myopathies

Patient organisations' identity claims and their relations with specialists. The case of the French Muscular Dystrophy Organisation. Philanthropic organisations are historical key players into medical research. Those last decades, they have been joined by patient organisations. In France, the French Muscular Dystrophy Organisation (AFM) illustrates this evolution. The AFM supports sicentific and clinical research on neuromuscular diseases, and more broadly, on genetic diseases. In addition, MD patients and families participate actively into the production of knowledge and the implementation of new forms of care. Thus, it is worth explicitating the mode of action of the AFM, for it will help understand how do users come to intervene into activities that are supposed to be the exclusive domain of specialists. The aim of this article is to describe the main features of the mode of action of the AFM. It draws on a research project whose objective is to trace the history of the AFM, and its long-lasting implication into the scientific, medical, economic, social, and political domains. This article is divided into two sections. The first section will answer the following question: in what extent is the model invented by the AFM an original one? It will be shown that the AFM, as many patient organisations, inherits the problem of the relationships between users and specialists from the self-help movement. It will be argued that none of the solutions imagined by the self-help movement fits to the situation of the AFM. Therefore, the AFM had been forced to elaborate its own model. The second section displays the main characteristics of the AFM model: a) the board of administrators has the political power to decide upon research support and orientation; the scientific council has a strict advisory role; b) patients and families contribute to the production of knowledge on their diseases, and to the implementation of new forms of care. In the conclusion, the consequences of this model will be discussed, notably as regards the way the mobilisation against diseases is organised. Un nouveau modèle de relation entre les malades et la recherche médicale. Le cas de l'Association française contre les myopathies. Les associations de malades occupent une place de plus en plus visible sur la scène médicale, certaines d'entre elles participant aux activités qui les concernent, et notamment à la recherche sur leurs maladies. Il s'agit là d'une évolution en profondeur du mouvement self-help : les associations de malades ne se contentent plus d'être des groupes d'entraide ou des groupes de défense de leurs intérêts catégoriels. Elles deviennent de véritables partenaires des spécialistes dans la production de connaissances et dans la prise en charge de leurs maladies. En France, l'AFM (Association française contre les myopathies) est une des figures de proue de cette évolution. Son originalité est d'avoir inventé des outils et des procédures qui permettent d'inscrire le partenariat entre les malades et les spécialistes dans la durée. Cet article est consacré à la description de ce modèle partenarial, aux conditions dans lesquelles il a émergé, ainsi qu'à ses conséquences sur l'organisation de l'espace de mobilisation autour des maladies.

Social movements, welfare and social policy: a critical analysis

This article proposes that theories of ‘new’ social movements (NSMs) may illuminate contemporary welfare struggles and inform research into collective action in social policy. NSM theory is relevant because it focuses on social movement cultures, identity politics and symbolic struggles for the recognition of difference. However, it does this to the exclusion of ‘traditional’ issues such as material redistribution and inequality. A critical social policy, on the other hand, has retained a regard for these issues, but is also concerned with struggles for recognition. It is argued that all social movements raise issues about redistribution and recognition, although these will coexist to varying degrees. Using work carried out in the United States into women's self-help movements, this article shows how movements that are largely cultural may change social policy by posing symbolic challenges.

Is It Sick to Want to Live to 100? The Popular Culture of Health and Longevity

Is It Sick to Want to Live to 100? The Popular Culture of Health and Longevity

IS CODEPENDENCY A MEANINGFUL CONCEPT?

The concept of codependency has achieved a prominent place in the psychiatric, psychological, and addiction literature in a remarkably short period of time. Although the term was first developed in the substance abuse treatment arena, specifically referring to the wives of men who abuse alcohol, codependency has more recently been used almost generically to describe a dysfunctional style of relating to others (Irwin, 1995). The manner in which definitions of codependency have become increasingly inclusive are probably related to continuing input from the both the fashionable self-help movement and from some psychiatric perspectives. The purpose of this article is to review proposed definitions of codependency, discuss issues related to the validity of the codependency construct, and summarize efforts aimed at producing instruments to measure codependency. Additionally, I will address implications of this concept as related to psychiatric nursing education, practice, and research.

The wounded healer.

This paper deals with the emergence, elaboration, and use of the concept of "the wounded healer." The term refers to a person whose personal experience of illness and/or trauma has left lingering effects on him--in the form of lessons learned that later served him in ministering to other sufferers, or in the form of symptoms or characteristics that usefully influenced his therapeutic endeavors. While such persons and their actions have been noted across the ages, in other cultures, and in many contexts, it was not until the early twentieth century that the patterns in the behaviors of such persons were recognized, named, explained, and categorized as "healing." Early in the century, the concept was commonly used in the fields of pastoral counseling and analytical psychology; by the end of the century it had been vastly expanded and extended and no longer referred mainly to a healer of psychological suffering. The term wounded healer is now in common use in areas such as rehabilitation medicine, medical-career choice, Alcoholics Anonymous and the self-help movement, and chronic-illness support groups, as well as in the original areas of psychotherapy and pastoral care.