In a support group, members provide each other with various types of help, usually nonprofessional and nonmaterial, for a particular shared, usually burdensome, characteristic. The help may take the form of providing and evaluating relevant information, relating personal experiences, listening to and accepting others' experiences, providing sympathetic understanding and establishing social networks. A support group may also work to inform the public or engage in advocacy.

History

Formal support groups may appear to be a modern phenomenon, but they supplement traditional fraternal organizations such as Freemasonry

Freemasonry

Freemasonry is a fraternal organisation that arose from obscure origins in the late 16th to early 17th century. Freemasonry now exists in various forms all over the world, with a membership estimated at around six million, including approximately 150,000 under the jurisdictions of the Grand Lodge...

 in some respects, and may build on certain supportive functions (formerly) carried out in (extended) families

Family

In human context, a family is a group of people affiliated by consanguinity, affinity, or co-residence. In most societies it is the principal institution for the socialization of children...

.

Other types of groups formed to support causes, including causes outside of themselves, are more often called advocacy groups, interest groups, lobby groups, pressure groups or promotional groups. Trade union

Trade union

A trade union, trades union or labor union is an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals such as better working conditions. The trade union, through its leadership, bargains with the employer on behalf of union members and negotiates labour contracts with...

s and many environmental groups, for example, are interest groups. The term support group in this article refers to peer-to-peer support.

Maintaining contact

Support groups maintain interpersonal contact among their members in a variety of ways. Traditionally, groups have met in person in sizes that allowed conversational interaction. Support groups also maintain contact through printed newsletters, telephone chains, internet forums, and mailing lists. Some support groups are exclusively online (see below).

Membership in some support groups is formally controlled, with admission requirements and membership fees. Other groups are "open" and allow anyone to attend an advertised meeting, for example, or to participate in an online forum.

Management by peers or professionals

A self-help support group is fully organized and managed by its members, who are commonly volunteers and have personal experience in the subject of the group's focus. These groups may also be referred to as fellowships, peer support groups, lay organizations, mutual help groups, or mutual aid self-help groups.

Professionally operated support groups are facilitated by professionals who do not share the problem of the members, such as social workers, psychologists, or members of the clergy. The facilitator controls discussions and provides other managerial service. Such professionally operated groups are often found in institutional settings, including hospitals, drug-treatment centers

Drug treatment

Drug treatment may refer to:*the treatment of illness with pharmaceutical drugs*Drug rehabilitation, the treatment of substance dependence/drug addiction*Drug Treatment, an album by by the Japanese band Kuroyume...

 and correctional facilities

Prison

A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Imprisonment or incarceration is a legal penalty that may be imposed by the state for the commission of a crime...

. These types of support group may run for a specified period of time, and an attendance fee is sometimes charged.

Types of support groups

In the case of a disease

Disease

A disease is an abnormal condition affecting the body of an organism. It is often construed to be a medical condition associated with specific symptoms and signs. It may be caused by external factors, such as infectious disease, or it may be caused by internal dysfunctions, such as autoimmune...

, an identity

Cultural identity

Cultural identity is the identity of a group or culture, or of an individual as far as one is influenced by one's belonging to a group or culture. Cultural identity is similar to and has overlaps with, but is not synonymous with, identity politics....

 or a pre-disposition, for example, a support group will provide information, act as a clearing-house for experiences, and may serve as a public relations

Public relations

Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....

 voice for sufferers, other members, and their families. Compare Mental Health Stigma

Mental health

Mental health describes either a level of cognitive or emotional well-being or an absence of a mental disorder. From perspectives of the discipline of positive psychology or holism mental health may include an individual's ability to enjoy life and procure a balance between life activities and...

, Mensa International

Mensa International

Mensa is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test...

 and gay pride

Gay pride

LGBT pride or gay pride is the concept that lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people should be proud of their sexual orientation and gender identity...

, for example.

For more temporary conditions, such as bereavement or the problems of ex-cult

Cult

The word cult in current popular usage usually refers to a group whose beliefs or practices are considered abnormal or bizarre. The word originally denoted a system of ritual practices...

 members, a support group may veer more towards helping those involved to overcome or move "beyond" their condition/experience.

Some support groups and conditions for which such groups may be formed are:

• Addiction
  Addiction recovery groups
  Addiction recovery groups are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome drug addiction. Different groups use different methods, ranging from completely secular to explicitly spiritual. One survey of members found active involvement in any addiction recovery group...
  
  
• AIDS
  AIDS
  Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
  
  
• Alzheimer's
• Alcoholics Anonymous
  Alcoholics Anonymous
  Alcoholics Anonymous is an international mutual aid movement which says its "primary purpose is to stay sober and help other alcoholics achieve sobriety." Now claiming more than 2 million members, AA was founded in 1935 by Bill Wilson and Dr. Bob Smith in Akron, Ohio...
  
  
• Anxiety disorder
  Anxiety disorder
  Anxiety disorder is a blanket term covering several different forms of abnormal and pathological fear and anxiety. Conditions now considered anxiety disorders only came under the aegis of psychiatry at the end of the 19th century. Gelder, Mayou & Geddes explains that anxiety disorders are...
  
  s
• Asperger syndrome
  Asperger syndrome
  Asperger's syndrome that is characterized by significant difficulties in social interaction, alongside restricted and repetitive patterns of behavior and interests. It differs from other autism spectrum disorders by its relative preservation of linguistic and cognitive development...
  
  
• Breastfeeding
  Breastfeeding
  Breastfeeding is the feeding of an infant or young child with breast milk directly from female human breasts rather than from a baby bottle or other container. Babies have a sucking reflex that enables them to suck and swallow milk. It is recommended that mothers breastfeed for six months or...
  
  
• Brain Attack
  Stroke
  A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
  
   or Brain Trauma
  Brain injury
  A brain injury is any injury occurring in the brain of a living organism. Brain injuries can be classified along several dimensions. Primary and secondary brain injury are ways to classify the injury processes that occur in brain injury, while focal and diffuse brain injury are ways to classify...
  
  
• Cancer
  Cancer support group
  Cancer support groups provide a setting in which cancer patients can talk about living with cancer with others who may be having similar experiences...
  
  
• Circadian rhythm disorders
• Diabetes
• Debtors Anonymous
  Debtors Anonymous
  Debtors Anonymous is a twelve-step program for people who want to stop incurring unsecured debt. Collectively they attend more than 500 weekly meetings in nine countries...
  
  
• Domestic Violence
  Domestic violence
  Domestic violence, also known as domestic abuse, spousal abuse, battering, family violence, and intimate partner violence , is broadly defined as a pattern of abusive behaviors by one or both partners in an intimate relationship such as marriage, dating, family, or cohabitation...
  
  
• Eating disorder
  Eating disorder
  Eating disorders refer to a group of conditions defined by abnormal eating habits that may involve either insufficient or excessive food intake to the detriment of an individual's physical and mental health. Bulimia nervosa, anorexia nervosa, and binge eating disorder are the most common specific...
  
  s
• Ex-gay groups
  Ex-gay
  The ex-gay movement consists of people and organizations that seek to get people to refrain from entering or pursuing same-sex relationships, to eliminate homosexual desires, to develop heterosexual desires, or to enter into a heterosexual relationship...
  
  
• Fibromyalgia
  Fibromyalgia
  Fibromyalgia is a medical disorder characterized by chronic widespread pain and allodynia, a heightened and painful response to pressure. It is an example of a diagnosis of exclusion...
  
  

• Gamblers Anonymous
  Gamblers Anonymous
  Gamblers Anonymous is a twelve-step program for problem gamblers. GA began in Los Angeles on September 13, 1957. As of 2005 there were over 1000 GA meetings in the United States and meetings established in the United Kingdom, Spain, New Zealand, Australia, Brazil, Israel, Kenya, Uganda, Korea and...
  
  
• Grief
  Grief
  Grief is a multi-faceted response to loss, particularly to the loss of someone or something to which a bond was formed. Although conventionally focused on the emotional response to loss, it also has physical, cognitive, behavioral, social, and philosophical dimensions...
  
  
• Infertility
  Infertility
  Infertility primarily refers to the biological inability of a person to contribute to conception. Infertility may also refer to the state of a woman who is unable to carry a pregnancy to full term...
  
  
• Inflammatory Bowel Disease
  Inflammatory bowel disease
  In medicine, inflammatory bowel disease is a group of inflammatory conditions of the colon and small intestine. The major types of IBD are Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis.-Classification:...
  
  
• Irritable Bowel Syndrome
  Irritable bowel syndrome
  Irritable bowel syndrome is a diagnosis of exclusion. It is a functional bowel disorder characterized by chronic abdominal pain, discomfort, bloating, and alteration of bowel habits in the absence of any detectable organic cause. In some cases, the symptoms are relieved by bowel movements...
  
  
• Miscarriage
  Miscarriage
  Miscarriage or spontaneous abortion is the spontaneous end of a pregnancy at a stage where the embryo or fetus is incapable of surviving independently, generally defined in humans at prior to 20 weeks of gestation...
  
  
• Mood Disorder
  Mood disorder
  Mood disorder is the term designating a group of diagnoses in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders classification system where a disturbance in the person's mood is hypothesized to be the main underlying feature...
  
  s
• Parents of suicide victims
• Parkinson's disease
  Parkinson's disease
  Parkinson's disease is a degenerative disorder of the central nervous system...
  
  
• Sexual abuse survivors
  Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests
  The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, known as SNAP, established in 1989, is the oldest and most active support group of survivors of clergy sexual abuse and their supporters in the United States...
  
  
• Sleep disorder
  Sleep disorder
  A sleep disorder, or somnipathy, is a medical disorder of the sleep patterns of a person or animal. Some sleep disorders are serious enough to interfere with normal physical, mental and emotional functioning...
  
  s
• Stroke
  Stroke
  A stroke, previously known medically as a cerebrovascular accident , is the rapidly developing loss of brain function due to disturbance in the blood supply to the brain. This can be due to ischemia caused by blockage , or a hemorrhage...
  
  
• Suicide prevention
  Suicide Prevention Action Network USA
  The Suicide Prevention Action Network USA is a 501 organization that was founded in 1996 by Gerald and Elsie Weyrauch, whose 34-year-old daughter, Terri, died by suicide. SPAN USA is "dedicated to preventing suicide through public education and awareness, community action and federal, state and...
  
  
• Ulcerative Colitis
  Ulcerative colitis
  Ulcerative colitis is a form of inflammatory bowel disease . Ulcerative colitis is a form of colitis, a disease of the colon , that includes characteristic ulcers, or open sores. The main symptom of active disease is usually constant diarrhea mixed with blood, of gradual onset...
  
  

Online support groups

Since at least 1982, the Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

 has provided a new and successful venue for support groups. Discussing online self-help support groups as the precursor to e-therapy, Martha Ainsworth notes that "the enduring success of these groups has firmly established the potential of computer-mediated communication to enable discussion of sensitive personal issues."
Support groups have long offered companionship and information for people coping with diseases or disabilities, and online situationally oriented groups have expanded to offer support for people facing various life circumstances, especially those involving personal and cultural relationships.

Diverse remote networking formats have allowed the development of both synchronous groups, where individuals can exchange messages in real time, and asynchronous groups, where members who are not necessarily simultaneously connected to a network can read and exchange messages. E-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

, Usenet

Usenet

Usenet is a worldwide distributed Internet discussion system. It developed from the general purpose UUCP architecture of the same name.Duke University graduate students Tom Truscott and Jim Ellis conceived the idea in 1979 and it was established in 1980...

 and Internet bulletin boards have become popular methods of communication for peer-to-peer self-help groups and among facilitated support groups.

Appropriate groups still difficult to find

A researcher from the University College London says the lack of qualitative directories, and the fact that many support groups are not listed by search engines can make finding an appropriate group difficult. Even so, he does say that the medical community needs "to understand the use of personal experiences rather than an evidence-based approach... these groups also impact on how individuals use information. They can help people learn how to find and use information: for example, users swap Web sites and discuss Web sites."

It is not difficult to find an online support group, but it is hard to find a good one. In the article What to Look for in Quality Online Support Groups, John M. Grohol gives tips for evaluating online groups and states: "In good online support groups, members stick around long after they've received the support they were seeking. They stay because they want to give others what they themselves found in the group. Psychologists call this high group cohesion, and it is the pinnacle of group achievement."

Benefits and pitfalls

Several studies have shown the importance of the Internet in providing social support, particularly to groups with chronic health problems. Especially in cases of uncommon ailments, a sense of community and understanding in spite of great geographical distances can be important, in addition to sharing of knowledge.

Online support groups, online communities for those affected by a common problem, give mutual support and provide information, two often inseparable features. They are, according to Henry Potts of University College London, "an overlooked resource for patients." Many studies have looked at the content of messages, while what matters is the effect that participation in the group has on the individual. Potts complains that research on these groups has lagged behind, particularly on the groups which are set up by the people with the problems, rather than by researchers and healthcare professionals. User-defined groups can share the sort of practical knowledge that healthcare professionals can overlook, and they also impact on how individuals find, interpret and use information.

Marc D. Feldman of the University of Alabama at Birmingham has warned about sympathy-seekers who invade Internet support groups. He calls it Munchausen

Munchausen syndrome

Münchausen syndrome is a psychiatric factitious disorder wherein those affected feign disease, illness, or psychological trauma to draw attention or sympathy to themselves. It is also sometimes known as hospital addiction syndrome or hospital hopper syndrome...

 by Internet. People can invent or induce fictitious illnesses in themselves or others in an effort to gain sympathy. He alleges that these storytellers can have an enormous impact on online support groups. Among other things, Dr. Feldman says, they can:

• Create a division between those who believe the tale and those who don't,
• Cause some to leave the group,
• Temporarily distract the group from its mission by forcing it to focus on the poser. "Overwhelmingly, these support groups offer a tremendous benefit to people," he says, but "as in other areas of our lives, we have to be informed."

Support groups in popular media

• The 1996 novel Fight Club
  Fight Club (novel)
  Fight Club is a 1996 novel by Chuck Palahniuk. It follows the experiences of an unnamed protagonist struggling with insomnia. Inspired by his doctor's exasperated remark that insomnia is not suffering, he finds relief by impersonating a seriously ill person in several support groups...
  
  (and the 1999 film adaptation
  Fight Club (film)
  Fight Club is a 1999 American film based on the 1996 novel of the same name by Chuck Palahniuk. The film was directed by David Fincher and stars Edward Norton, Brad Pitt and Helena Bonham Carter. Norton plays the unnamed protagonist, an "everyman" who is discontented with his white-collar job...
  
  ) presents a wry analysis of support groups and their function.
• In the Pixar film Finding Nemo
  Finding Nemo
  Finding Nemo is a 2003 American comi-drama animated film written by Andrew Stanton, directed by Andrew Stanton and Lee Unkrich and produced by Pixar. It tells the story of the overly protective clownfish Marlin who, along with a regal tang called Dory , searches for his abducted son Nemo...
  
  , the two main characters encounter three sharks that form a self-help support group to help each other swear off eating fish and change their image.
• The hit musical RENT
  Rent
  Rent may refer to:*Renting, a system of payment for the temporary use of something owned by someone else ; the payments for such use are typically referred to as "rent"...
  
  , there is a support group to help sufferers of AIDS
  AIDS
  Acquired immune deficiency syndrome or acquired immunodeficiency syndrome is a disease of the human immune system caused by the human immunodeficiency virus...
  
   cope with their illness.
• In Evermore
  Evermore
  Evermore are a band originally from Feilding, New Zealand, now based in Melbourne, Australia. The band consists of the Hume brothers – Jon , Peter and Dann...
  
  , the teenage heroine's best friend is 'what you'd call an anonymous-group addict...she's attended twelve-step meetings for alcoholics, narcotics, codependents, debtors, gamblers, cyber addicts, nicotine junkies, social phobics, pack rats, and vulgarity lovers'. Contemplating her lack of parental support, however, the heroine concludes that 'if standing before a room full of people, creating some sob story about her tormented struggle with that day's fill-in-the-blank addiction makes her feel important, well, who am I to judge'.

See also

• Community of purpose
  Community of purpose
  A community of purpose is a community of people who are going through the same process or are trying to achieve a similar objective. Such communities serve a functional purpose, smoothing the path of the member for a limited period surrounding a given activity...
  
  
• Community organization
  Community organization
  Community organizations are civil society non-profits that operate within a single local community. They are essentially a subset of the wider group of nonprofits. Like other nonprofits they are often run on a voluntary basis and are self funded...
  
  s
• E-Patient
  E-Patient
  e-Patients are health consumers who use the Internet to gather information about a medical condition of particular interest to them, and who use electronic communication tools in coping with medical conditions...
  
  
• "Friends of" organization
• Kudumbashree
• List of Twelve-Step groups
• Online counseling
  Online counseling
  Online counseling is the provision of professional mental health counseling services concerns via the Internet. Services are typically offered via email, real-time chat, and video conferencing...
  
  

• 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...
  
  
• Self-help groups for mental health
  Self-help groups for mental health
  Self-help groups for mental health are voluntary associations of people who share a common desire to overcome mental illness or otherwise increase their level of cognitive or emotional wellbeing. There are several international mental health self-help organizations including Emotions Anonymous, the...
  
  
• Virtual community
  Virtual community
  A virtual community is a social network of individuals who interact through specific media, potentially crossing geographical and political boundaries in order to pursue mutual interests or goals...
  
  
• List of hemophilia organizations

External links

• Keyword-searchable database 1,050 int'l, national & model groups (American Self-Help Group Clearinghouse, USA)
• Local self-help group clearinghouses (worldwide)
• Online Support Groups