Guide to Mental Health Self-Help Support Group Experience - Essay Example

Stigma has brought many individuals together in the fight for acceptance and self-esteem. A number of consumer, family, and community groups have risen directly from the community mental health system. Many are actively engaged in changing the way treatment is provided, improving expedient access to care, developing housing and housing support programs, seeking increased funding, fighting for parity through legislation, advocating patient rights and equal entitlements and any number issues and concerns that surface at the local and national level.

The effects of mental illness reach far and beyond the afflicted individual. They touch the family, friends, and caregivers as well. How the symptoms are managed depends on a great degree on the amount of information provided by the mental health professional. In addition, the cultural perspective will often dictate the level of shame and stigma that must be overcome and how treatment will be provided. The medical model seeks to reinforce the importance of lifelong abstinence by encouraging the patient to attend counseling and twelve step groups.

These support groups are frequently used as adjunctive interventions and are philosophically interwoven into many social and medical model treatment programs. Alcoholic Anonymous (AA) was founded in the 1930s by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith, two alcoholics who discovered that they could maintain their sobriety by helping other alcoholics. AA is often referred to as the most effective and widely utilized treatment for addictions (Royce, 1981) and this is the primary reason why our group chose this mental health support group.

Aside from this, it is now an international self-help fellowship which offers support to all people who want to quit drinking. Narcotics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous and other anonymous support groups are structured on the AA model and utilizes its “Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions” as the basis of their recovery program. The fellowship and principles offered at meetings encourage individuals to remain sober by taking life “one day at a time” and to work toward spiritual development and character change.

Alcoholics Anonymous currently has more than one million members in the United States with 52,000 groups while they have almost 100,000 members in Canada with 45,000 groups. They also have members outside US and Canada averaging 730,000 distributed in more than 45,000 groups. They have a total of 2,082,980 members and 105,294 groups in their organization including the loners and members in correctional facilities. At the local group level, formal organization is kept to a minimum. The group may have a small steering committee and a limited number of rotating officers — “trusted servants” whose responsibilities include arranging meeting programs, providing refreshments, participating in regional A.A. activities, and maintaining contact with the General Service Office.

The principle of consistent rotation of responsibility is followed in virtually all A.A. service positions. Positions in the local group are usually rotated semiannually or annually. A.A.’s relations with professional groups, agencies, facilities, and individuals involved with the problems of alcoholism are handled by the trustees’ Committee on Cooperation with the Professional Community/Treatment Facilities. Mutual understanding and cooperation between A.A. members and others who work with alcoholics are the concerns of this standing committee of the General Service Board.

Overall, the leader is the organizer of the group. He initiates action and interaction, directs the activities of the group, and establishes an atmosphere of trust and openness. The leader is the “holder” of the group by virtue of his development, implementation and overall investments. the group leader remains aware that ongoing careful attention to the structure and content of the group through their interactions and directions continually establishes its tone and influences its success and the degree of member participation.

My observations of the group facilitation and leadership are brief. By establishing norms and boundaries of the group through organization and attention, the group leader assist members in feeling comfortable and motivated to participate. The group leader also establishes an ambiance of safety.REFERENCES:Alcoholics Anonymous. (1976). The Story of how thousands of men and women have recovered from alcoholism (“The Big Book”). New York: Alcoholics Anonymous World Services, Inc.Royce, J. E. (1981). Alcohol Problems and Alcoholism.

New York: Free Press.