Vol. 74 No. 3 — May/June 1993 —
A Room and a Coffee
Pot
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Support groups have been springing up everywhere
lately to strengthen people's ability to cope with personal
problems. They activate the healing power of faith, hope,
and charity. They also prove an old theory: that you can't
do good for another person without doing good for yourself...
It is insufficiently recognized in the news of all the bad
things that are going on in this world that a lot of good
things are also happening. God knows the human race has problems
- new and different ones, it seems, every day. But the problems
are not, as in the past, simply being allowed to take their
course; people are resisting them, coping with them, trying
to eliminate or mitigate their causes. And in this way, good
is coming out of bad, bringing hope to countless individuals
who otherwise might be doomed to a life of misery.
There could be no better example of this phenomenon than
the support group movement which has grown up in recent years
to help people to cope with personal afflictions. In the English
language the movement also goes under the heading of "self-help"
a term that is somewhat misleading at first glance. In a great
many cases, people turn to these groups precisely because
they cannot help themselves: they have surrendered control
over their own behaviour to an addiction or other form of
inner compulsion. They need the help of others to restore
their personal autonomy.
There is, however, some validity to the term when you consider
the psychological process that takes place when people decide
to join support groups. First, they refuse to let a problem
run rampant without fighting back. Then, rather than handing
the problem over to a professional, as a litigant would hand
a law suit over to a lawyer, they take responsibility for
dealing with their own cases in association with fellow-sufferers.
Most well-established support groups welcome professional
counsel, but professional participation is ancillary to their
"do-it-yourself" approach.
The concept of self-help originated in the United States
in 1935 with the formation of Alcoholics Anonymous. In those
days little help was available for alcohol addiction outside
of hospitals. AA's founders developed a step-by-step program
of recovery from their addiction centred on meetings at which
alcoholics related their experiences and compared notes on
how to stay sober. They set up a system through which members
could call on the moral support of their fellows in moments
of weakness at any time of day or night.
Of course, the idea of mutual support was not new: on the
contrary, it goes back to the very beginnings of civilization.
The first human settlements were built by people who faced
common hardships and dangers and realized that their burdens
were lightened when they were shared. People formed religious
congregations which brought the strength of unity to the task
of aiding the weaker members of their society. At the centre
of it all was the extended family, consisting not only of
parents and children, but of grandparents, cousins, uncles
and aunts.
What was new about AA was that it responded to the needs
of a society in which the role of the family was diminishing.
Today the extended family, with more or less all of its members
in one place, has largely become a thing of the past. In North
America, mobility is part of the culture. When people are
scattered all over the map, they become less likely to turn
to their families in times of trouble than if they had stayed
in their places of birth.
It is interesting that one of the founders of Alcoholics
Anonymous was living away from home when the movement started.
He was a stockbroker from New York City working in Akron,
Ohio, on a business deal. The venture failed, and he was tempted
to resume drinking after a long spell of sobriety. He sought
out another alcoholic, a local physician, and helped the latter
overcome his own drinking problem. Soon both were permanently
sober, and together they laid down the principles of AA.
The word "Anonymous" originally referred to the idea that
not being required to disclose one's name or other personal
details encourages a healthy process of "opening up" about
one's feelings and failures. But it also carries echoes of
the isolation and alienation that have led to so many human
problems in modern western society.
Simply admitting to a problem is a big step
towards recovery
Recent years have brought a rash of family breakups along
with the decline of the family-based community as a result
of the steady migration from rural to urban areas. Fewer and
fewer people actively practise religion, more and more of
them are living alone, and vast numbers of children are being
raised in the absence of one of their parents. All these trends
detract from the emotional stability which individuals once
found among their families, neighbourhoods, and communities.
Still, people today tend to romanticize and mythologize
the old- fashioned way of life, forgetting that the cosy little
towns of yesteryear could be very cruel to those who did not
conform to their orthodoxies. In such a milieu, men and women
with personal problems either kept them hidden or ran the
risk of being ostracized, bringing disrepute to their families
as well.
The advantage of a support group over a community in dealing
with aberrant behaviour is that members of support groups
are unlikely to take a censorious view of human frailties.
Their own knowledge of how easy it is to succumb to weakness
prevents them from making severe judgments. If a member falters
and goes back to the old destructive ways, he or she is more
likely to be regarded as a salutary negative example than
as a failure to be despised.
As for the family, the emotional support offered by self-help
groups goes beyond what any family can be expected to offer.
"Self- helpers" find they can express thoughts and feelings
to their peers which they could never reveal to their most
intimate or sympathetic relatives.
Indeed family relationships are among the main sources of
the troubles that drive people to seek help in the first place.
Several years after AA was founded, a group of its members
formed Al-Anon, designed to help the spouses of actively alcoholic
partners. Now called Al-Anon Family Groups, it has become
an umbrella organization covering the companions, relatives,
friends and children of alcoholics.
The original "anonymous" movements have since been emulated
by a large number of groups: Gamblers Anonymous, Narcotics
Anonymous, Divorce Anonymous, Debtors Anonymous, Overeaters
Anonymous, and Emotions Anonymous, to mention a few of the
more prominent ones. Anonymity is by no means universal among
support groups, but it is considered useful in situations
where people are embarrassed by their problem because society
attaches a stigma to it.
Anonymity also helps to make at least some group members
feel that they can talk sincerely about themselves, withholding
nothing. To cover up addictions and personal pain, people
in trouble become adept at deceiving those around them, and
deceiving themselves into the bargain. Therefore self-help
programs entail a "searching and fearless moral inventory"
which is best accomplished in the company of people who have
had similar experiences. They are not likely to be shocked
by frank revelations, or duped by lies or partial truths about
oneself.
"No person is ever made better by having someone else tell
him how rotten he is; but many are made better by avowing
the guilt themselves," wrote Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. The popular
Roman Catholic churchman obviously had a keen appreciation
of the curative properties of the confessional. For many,
the cathartic effect of admitting to others that they have
a problem at all is a big step towards recovery.
People are conditioned to feel ashamed of personal problems
that are serious enough to call for outside help, and trying
to cover their shame tends to isolate them from society. Merely
"coming out with it" brings a liberating feeling of relief
which is intensified by the realization that other group members
have behaved just as self-destructively, and hurt as many
others while doing so, as oneself.
Individuals who keep telling themselves "how rotten they
are" are likely to find others in their group who are clearly
not rotten at heart, but who nevertheless have been down the
same grim road as they have. It is strangely encouraging to
know that one is not alone in having a particular problem.
To know that others can muster the strength to fight it stiffens
one's own resolve to persevere.
The toughest obstacle to personal reform is the fatalism
that whispers inwardly, "I'll never be able to change, so
it's no use trying." It dwells in people who have unsuccessfully
attempted to " kick" their habits so many times that they
have given up struggling with their own personalities.
But usually they have tried to do it alone, forgetting that
they have become expert at fooling themselves - at rationalizing
their behaviour and finding excuses for persisting in it.
We all make our own worst role models, whereas support groups
provide living examples of deeply troubled souls who have
succeeded in remodelling their personalities.
It is part of their continuing therapy to help others do
the same. One of the tenets of self-help for addicts is that
addictions are never conquered, merely arrested. Like the
stockbroker co-founder of AA, many addicts find that the best
way to avert a relapse is to work with others in attempting
to deal with their common plight.
Being called upon to support others may bring out hidden strengths
The dynamics of support groups confirm the saying that you
can't help another person without helping yourself. In the
exchange of experiences, feelings and practical techniques
for getting along in life, every helper becomes a "helpee."
New members meet people they can honestly respect; not case
studies in a textbook or metaphorical figures in a sermon,
but living human beings who "know what they're talking about,"
who have "been there. " This empathy goes a long way towards
making support groups work, particularly among those who initially
had their doubts about joining. When they see individuals
like themselves who are living normally and enjoying it, they
realize that the problems that have dragged them down are
not insoluble for anyone.
In the process of give and take, people who had lost their
self- respect because of the degrading nature of their habits
can regain it. Men and women who have come to think of themselves
as spineless may discover untapped sources of spiritual strength
when they are called upon to support others. In extremely
damaging cases of addiction, a loss of self-respect is half
the problem. When participation in a group helps to bring
it back, half the battle is won.
"The people who influence you are the people who believe
in you," the Scottish writer and lecturer Henry Drummond wrote.
Confidence in every person's inner strength is the philosophical
backbone of any support group. Of course, not everybody follows
a program through to success; in Alcoholics Anonymous, for
example, roughly one-third never drink again, one-third lapse
and later resume the program, and one-third resume drinking
permanently. But the failure rate does not contradict the
concept. The concept is that, though not everybody changes,
everybody has the latent capacity for change.
At the stage in their lives when people resort to joining
addiction- based groups, they are usually in fairly desperate
condition. Even at that, addicts will sometimes relapse into
their addictive habits several times before they shed them
for good. It is common practice in traditional self-help programs
for members to "hit bottom" before they finally recover. But
lately the movement has entered a new phase in which the healing
power of mutual support is being extended to individuals who
have not lost control over their lives, but who nonetheless
need support.
In the past few years, literally hundreds of new groups
have sprung up in North America and Western Europe. They form
a distinctly late- century phenomenon which owes much to urbanization
and advanced technology. Through modern communications equipment
and access to the media, people with mutual problems are able
to arrange meetings and keep in touch with one another in
ways that were impossible a few years ago. Telephones, faxes,
answering machines, electronic billboards and the like have
enabled people with unusual problems to seek each other out.
An example is alopecia areata, the total loss of hair. Men,
women and children who felt they were alone in having to live
with this condition now find comfort and confidence in groups
that include spouses and parents besides themselves.
While a variety of physical problems are being dealt with
by recently-formed groups, family disorders continue to figure
prominently in the list of those concerned with psychology.
Adults who have never been able to get over the distress of
growing up in dysfunctional families have joined together
in groups like Adult Prisoners of Childhood Anonymous and
Healing the Inner Child. There are groups for the spouses
and children of the mentally ill, for victims of family sexual
and physical abuse, for violent parents, and for the parents
of difficult children. There are groups for spouses suffering
bereavement, and for the families of people who have committed
suicide.
Usually the first thing anyone learns after joining such
groups is that there are a great many others in the same situation.
This helps to answer the poignant question, "Why me?" For
example, the parents of teenagers who have committed suicide
feel less singled out for tragedy when they sit down with
others who have suffered through the same trauma. They are
able to discuss their feelings of failure, shame and guilt
in a way which they could not do among friends and neighbours,
who are prone to pretend that nothing happened. Among themselves,
the parents are able to talk about "the things we don't talk
about."
In western cultures the leading taboo subject is death,
especially when it comes to talking to people who are expressly
threatened by it. The support group has proved to be an ideal
vehicle for coming to terms with the mental turmoil, fear
and alienation of conditions like cancer and AIDS. Not only
can fellow-sufferers lend comfort and moral support to each
other, they can gather practical information on the medical
aspects of their diseases. Cancer patients trade notes on
the side-effects of various treatments, and the AIDS and HIV-positive
groups act as clearing houses for new information concerning
AIDS.
Do new groups encourage recruits to find reasons
for self- pity?
The pragmatic functions of support groups should not be
discounted. When, for example, a group was established in
Toronto for recently widowed men, home economists were invited
in to offer tips on how to prepare meals and do housework,
things some members had never done before. Groups for the
hearing-impaired conduct workshops in lip reading and sign
language. Those devoted to obsessive- compulsive disorders
combine behaviour therapy with experimental medication. When
support group members with respiratory ailments meet, they
take physical exercises to help them breathe more easily.
Though groups such as these are only too glad to have professionals
around to lend them their expertise, there is an anti-professional
element in the self-help movement. In fact, some groups have
grown directly out of dissatisfaction with the professional
care offered in their fields. There are those who accuse the
medical and social work professions of a lack of both imagination
and sympathy in dealing with their particular interests. Some
maintain that no one who has not suffered as they have is
in any position to help people like them.
The answer to that from the professional point of view is
that you don't have to have appendicitis to treat appendicitis.
Following this line of reasoning, many doctors are less than
enthusiastic about self-help groups. Some psychiatrists see
them as purveying a kind of psychological self-medication
through which people seek to escape from their problems rather
than work on the resolution of them. Professionals also express
concern that participants with truly serious problems may
not obtain the expert assistance they need because they are
using self-help as a substitute for formal care, rather than
as a supplement.
Critics of the movement say that some groups have been formed
to deal with ridiculously trivial complaints which were formerly
ranked among the normal tribulations of living. In this way,
the critics charge, they encourage people to search for reasons
for feeling sorry for themselves.
Addressing the spiritual aspects of psychological and medical ills
The movement does seem to have spawned a few "groupies"
who flit from one group to the next, but they may merely be
attracted by the socialization that inevitably arises. Support
groups are not totally consumed by expressions of angst; laughter
has a large and healthy role to play when people talk about
their common woes. They have their dances, their pot-luck
suppers, their birthday cakes. The kind of conditions that
call for the formation of support groups often condemn their
sufferers to painful loneliness. Enjoying themselves among
kindred spirits may give them the confidence to resume more
normal social lives.
The aims of support groups vary far and wide, but they all
have one thing in common: they mobilize the wonderful psychic
power of human sympathy. It is the rare paid professional
who can be expected to drop by a person's home, have a cup
of coffee and a heart-to-heart talk, and leave with a word
of encouragement and a hug. Support group members do that.
The type of therapy they offer cannot be duplicated by scientific
methods. There is no substitute for personal concern and warmth.
In broad social terms, the support group is an idea whose
time has come. In a society of urban strangers, it provides
precious opportunities to reach out and touch others in a
special way. In addition, campaigns to reduce government deficits
have brought drastic spending cuts in the medical and social
welfare systems, so that less professional help is available
than formerly. The resources that remain clearly should be
husbanded for those who need them most.
The do-it-yourself approach is ideally suited to the age
of public austerity. Instead of the expensive facilities provided
in the public sector, all you need to start a support group
is a room and a coffee pot.
No reasonable person in the movement would contend that
support groups can take the place of the established medical
or social service system. Still, they have proved to be a
valuable adjunct to an institutional system which, for all
its sophistication, is often ill-equipped to cope with the
spiritual dimensions of psychological and medical ills. Support
groups bring to bear on human problems the spiritual values
of faith, hope and charity. And whenever these virtues have
been applied to the human condition, they have never failed
to have a healing effect.
Published by RBC Financial Group. All editions from the RBC
Letter collection are available on our web site at www.rbc.com/responsibility/letter.
Our e-mail address is: rbcletter@rbc.com.
Publié aussi en francais.
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