How do support groups work for mental health

Support groups provide an opportunity for participants to share their feelings, problems, ideas and information with others who have a similar experience. The groups work by providing:
• practical hints – for example, a mother of a mentally retarded child sharing how she manages her child’s temper tantrums, or a person with a drinking problem sharing how he resists the urge to drink whenever he passes by the local bar;
• information – for example, a brother of a person with schizophrenia sharing some news he has read about new medical treatments for the illness, or the daughter of someone with dementia sharing information about a new day-care home for elderly people;
• an opportunity to help each other – for example, when two parents of people with severely retarded children decide to babysit each other’s children for a day each week, to allow both parents a day to get on with other chores, or when two people with schizophrenia who feel lonely decide to get together and go to the cinema;
• the sense that “I am not alone” in my suffering;
• a space to share sensitive and distressing feelings about the mental illness in a group of people who can understand the reasons for such feelings.
Ultimately, a support group works by providing mutual support. This means each member of the group is both being supported by others and providing support to others. This is an empowering
feeling, quite unlike that of being a patient in a medical clinic.

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