Helper theory or the helper therapy principle is a model, first described in 1965 by Frank Riessman, attempting to explain the therapeutic effect for both people in a "helper" and "helpee" relationship within self-help

Self-help

Self-help, or self-improvement, is a self-guided improvement—economically, intellectually, or emotionally—often with a substantial psychological basis. There are many different self-help movements and each has its own focus, techniques, associated beliefs, proponents and in some cases, leaders...

/mutual-aid support group

Support group

In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic...

s. According to the model, in the process of helping another member, the helper gains an increased sense self-efficacy

Self-efficacy

Self-efficacy is a term used in psychology, roughly corresponding to a person's belief in their own competence.It has been defined as the belief that one is capable of performing in a certain manner to attain certain set of goals. It is believed that our personalized ideas of self-efficacy affect...

making the relationship mutually beneficial. Members in a self-help/mutual-aid group found that being in both helper and helpee rolls correlated positively with their psychological wellbeing and perceived benefit of the group. Such members had a greater sense of well-being and a more favorable opinion of the group than members who were helpees only.