Talk:Support group

merge encounter with support  ?

Merge suggested since Encarta lists those terms as synonims. I don't know enough to be certain whether they ar the same or is Encarta not large enough to explain the difference. Encarta source. Also consider merging with self-help.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 03:24, 30 November 2005 (UTC)

No... Wow, Encarta has it poorly. There are pretty big differences: American Heritage says encounter groups are for increasing members' "sensitivity, responsiveness, and emotional expressiveness" by encouraging free expression & emotional response; whereas support groups are for, well, support. ;-) Nadirsofar 16:00, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Score one for us then. It would be good to explain the difference in both articles before removing the merge tag.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus ^Talk 01:09, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

Each is what it is to a particular group, but generally and in proper relation to recognized literature, encounter groups are more confrontational, though they have evolved toward more gentle dialogue.[1] More recent encounter groups tend to be milder in their approach, but they are structured to elicit discovery of conflicting motivations, whereas support groups tend to encourage preferred goals and motivations. Support groups can be much wider in focus, such as divorce support groups or cancer support groups, whereas encounter groups tend to be primarily psychological or even psychoanalytic in focus. With these differences in mind, integrity of the concepts would best be preserved in seperate articles.ProveReader 08:09, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

No... The terms are distinct. Encounter groups were a faddish phenomenon that arose in the 1960s, along with a lot of what has now come to be termed New Age, and the actions of such groups can overlap with drama therapy. There is a definite coloration to this term. Support groups, on the other hand are always specialised to handle whatever type of mutual support is being sought. Just go to yahoogroups.com. The support group article as written here is much closer akin to the idea in the UK of self-help groups, which term I'm proposing to re-redirect to go to the support groups article. Matt Stan 21:17, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

Another huge difference is that encounter groups focus solely on here and now feelings and relationships within the group (because those are most salient), while support groups focus on there and then behaviors and life outside of the group. Manicexpressive 08:45, 4 May 2006 (UTC)

Merge tag removed... after 60 days with no support for merging, and good evidence they are unique concepts. Leastos 06:51, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

ooh. gonna remove the tag on the encounter groups one too, then. Theconroy 09:15, 1 June 2006 (UTC)

reworking

I kept all of the thrust of the previous content, but I've tried to clean up the presentation and make the definitions a little clearer. If there are ideas I've inadvertently left out, can they be worked into this framework, if possible? More examples would be great, too. Nadirsofar 16:44, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

I expanded further on Nadisofar's work, breaking out on-line support groups into a new section, with a reference to a scholarly publication on the phenomenon. I clarified the usual context of facilitated support groups. I omited the reference to a particular on-line facilitated group because the group named is one among thousands, but not typical of facilitated groups either on-line or in face-to-face settings. Unlike professionally facilitated groups associated with institutions, in that case, the faciliaton of the group was not a professional activity, per se, and the purpose of the group has vacilated between support and original research. That facilitator has cited in academic presentations the difficulty in sustaining such a group. Though the facilitator is a professional in a field related to the purpose of the group, his facilitation is not a paid activity, but rather a personal avocation outside his institutional affiliations. Given the scope of available groups, a reference to directories of groups would be more useful than a link to an atypical individual group.

And, for those not familiar with the narrow distinctions, the concepts of encounter groups, group therapy and support groups do come from unique origins. They each tend to center around unique and sometimes mutually exclusive purposes and methods. And self-help is also a unique topic, though appropriately and neccessarily addressed in the context of support groups. Self-help may have been better defined as self-care in a (now defunct?) publication [2][3] but it extends beyond the limited role of self-help group interaction to include many other self-initiated therapeutic activities. ProveReader 05:21, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

FYI: I intend to work on the online support groups section and hope to be able to find newer sources & research on the phenomenon. Preliminarily I've moved around and reworded some of the other sections.

I've removed most (but not all) use of the term self-help, as the article with that title is a bit of a mess. --Hordaland (talk) 09:19, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

OK, I'm done for now. Added a rather lame image -- can someone find a better or additional one? Proof-reading will be appreciated, thanks. --Hordaland (talk) 13:33, 16 April 2008 (UTC)

I noticed we are talking also about Online Support Groups. Is there any reason to make a mention of SupportGroups.com? I use the depression support groups there and it has helped. Just my 2 cents. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.223.7 (talk) 20:30, 12 December 2009 (UTC)

Good to hear it helped. That's a typical "forum"-type site which isn't allowed here, though. There are hundreds, probably thousands, of them and we can't handle a list. - Hordaland (talk) 12:07, 13 December 2009 (UTC)

That totally makes sense. Thanks for listening. Have a great day. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.166.223.7 (talk) 02:02, 19 December 2009 (UTC)

Potential edits for the "Online support groups" section

Given many unique characteristics of online communities (see Kraut & Resnick, 2012), it might be helpful if the article section on “Online support groups” were a separate Wikipedia article linked to the general “Support group” Wikipedia article.

In addition, the “Online support groups” section discusses very little about lurkers and community members who post. This issue should be discussed in more depth. For example, Mo and Coulson (2010) found that among users of HIV/AIDS online support groups, lurkers had significantly lower scores than posters on obtaining social support, obtaining useful information, and relationship satisfaction with support group members. Lurkers and posters also differed on other measures in this study; however, lurkers and posters did not significantly diverge on scores of self-care self efficacy, loneliness, optimism, and depression.

References:

Kraut, R.E., & Resnick, P. (2012). Building successful online communities: Evidence-based social design. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Mo, P.K.H., & Coulson, N. (2010). Empowering processes in online support groups among people living with HIV/AIDS: A comparative analysis of 'lurkers' and 'posters'. Computers in Human Behavior, 26, 1183-1193. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TAV4611 (talk • contribs) 04:54, 17 September 2012 (UTC)