Self-help Groups Develop

Collective Experiential Wisdom

Thank you for inviting me

Your Group is very impressive

What I will talk about

How I discovered Experiential

Knowledge: Key to Self-help Groups

1970

I admired their qualities and learned

from their stories of lived experience

My personal journey to appreciate

lived experience

1972

Aha! Self-help groups use and create

experiential knowledge

I have studied self-help groups

in North America and Europe for 43 years
43

1970

911

Self-help groups I have studied

in some depth

10

My ideas were developed in the West.

Do they make sense to you?

11

HOW ARE SELF-HELP GROUPS DEFINED?

THEIR CHARACTERISTICS?

12

Definition of Self-Help Group

13

Other characteristics that can occur

14

Core principles of self-help groups

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

15

Meaning perspective of issue

16

Liberating Meaning Perspective

17

WHAT ARE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN

EXPERIENTIAL, PROFESSIONAL AND LAY
PERSPECTIVES? DO DIFFERENCES MATTER?

18

19

Self-Help Group Versus Professionally-led support Group

1.

1.

2.

2.

3. 3.

4.

4.

5.

5.

20

How differences between self-help groups and

professionally-run support groups matter (1)
(1)

21

How differences between self-help groups and

professionally-run support groups matter (2)

(2)

22

Professionals can differ

23

HOW DO SELF-HELP GROUPS DEVELOP

EXPERIENTIAL KNOWLEDGE?

24

Experiential Knowledge

25

One persons experiences are not

Experiential Knowledge

o
o
o

o
o

26

Experiential knowledge develops from

the collective efforts of the group

27

Experiential Knowledge develops from the group

sharing its experiences and reviewing others ideas

28

Review professional and lay peoples ideas about you:

what is helpful and not helpful?

29

Developing experiential knowledge includes reviewing others

ideas about your experiences

30

A case from my research: A self-help group

learns the limits of professional knowledge

31

Case study: Individuals blame themselves for

therapy failures

32

The group develops experiential knowledge through

sharing their stories of speech therapy over and over

33

Summary: Experiential knowledge changes them and their perspective

34

Collective experiential knowledge

becomes authority

35

HOW DO INDIVIDUAL MEMBERS LEARN

AND GROW IN A SELF-HELP GROUP?

36

Cycle of Experiential-Social Learning

37

Definition of Sharing Circle

o
o
o
o
o
o

38

Sharing Circle is for peers only

39

Self-Help Groups use

Experiential and Social Learning

40

Dealing with grief involves

personal beliefs and values

41

Journey of grief varies over time

o
o
o

o
o
o
42

Cycle of Experiential-Social Learning

43

Congratulations on your
liberated meaning perspective of grief

44

Do my ideas make sense to you?

Are they helpful?

45

Thank you

46


Borkman, T. Understanding Self-Help/Mutual Aid:
Experiential Learning in the Commons. New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers Univ. Press, 1999.
Self-Help &Mutual Aid Groups: International &
Multicultural Perspectives, Prevention in Human
Services, 11, 1-2, 1994.
Riessman, F. & D. Carroll. Redefining Self-Help.
San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1995.
Kurtz, L. Self-Help & Support Groups: A Handbook
for Practitioners. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1997.
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