Classification
Self-help groups for mental health provide mutual support and peer support. Mutual support is a process by which people voluntarily come together to help each other address common problems. Peer support is social, emotional or instrumental support that is mutually offered or provided by persons with similar mental health conditions where there is some mutual agreement on what is helpful.
The definitions of mutual support and peer support include many other mental health consumer non-profits and social groups. Such groups are further distinguished as either Individual Therapy (inner-focused) or Social Reform (outer-focused) groups. In the former set members seek to improve themselves, wheres the latter set encompasses advocacy organizations such as Mental Health America, NAMI www.nami.org and USPRA. Self-help groups include Family-to-Family education and support groups, a program of NAMI. The effectiveness of this program has been confirmed in a recent controlled study. In recent years, culturally adapted versions of the Family to Family program have begun to spread to lower income countries, for example, in El Salvador (www.ACISAM.org, in collaboration with the U.S. based Center for Health and Human Development), Mexico, and Malaysia.
Self-help groups are subsets of mutual support and peer support groups, and have a specific purpose for mutual aid in satisfying a common need, overcoming a shared handicap or life-disrupting problem. Self-help groups are less bureaucratic and work on a more grassroots level. Self-help Organizations are national affiliates of local self-help groups or mental health consumer groups that finance research, maintain public relations or lobby for legislation in favor of those affected.
Read more about this topic: Self-help Groups For Mental Health