Friday, 14 January 2005 - 10:00 AM

This presentation is part of: Consumer-Driven Services for Persons with Severe Mental Illness

Consumer Perspectives on the Role of Self-Help and Traditional Services in the Lives of People with Schizophrenia

Over the past two decades, there has been increasing use of self-help groups by people with serious mental illness. As a result, our understanding of the role that they are playing in peoples’ lives is beginning to emerge. Yet we know little about how self-help members utilize these services in their efforts to cope with the illness, how they view the similarities or differences between self-help and traditional services, or how a self-help group’s ideology and vision may influence their beliefs and behaviors in their movement toward recovery. This research represents a secondary data analysis of forty-five qualitative interviews with participants in a self-help group, Schizophrenics Anonymous. An interpretive and narrative framework guided the examination of how participants described the similarities and differences between self-help and traditional services; the extent to which they use self-help in conjunction with other sources of support in their recovery efforts; and an examination of the group’s “community narrative,” or basic story, particularly its view on the role of traditional services and its relative degree of fit with members’ personal narratives. Thematic and inductive content analyses were used which involved a reduction of the empirical materials, a setting level analysis, an analysis of traditional service utilization, a cross-case analysis, and a within-case analysis. This study has brought the consumer perspective to our understanding of self-help and traditional services. There are three major findings. First, consumers’ reports converge with previously identified differences between self-help and traditional services advanced by professional literature and published consumer reports. These include differences between the knowledge bases and the setting characteristics. Second, descriptions from members of SA revealed that they integrate both self-help and traditional services in their efforts toward recovery. Each member described how they utilize at least one traditional service, psychiatric medication, and many others described how they integrated additional forms of traditional service into their recovery programs. Finally, the findings suggest that community narratives influence personal beliefs and behaviors and that this influence is communicated clearly and consistently within the organization. The suggestion that exposure to this narrative over time may influence a member’s personal narrative, beliefs, and behavior is advanced. This study suggests questions that the field may want to examine in regard to other population groups, such as those dealing with substance abuse and gambling addiction. Such studies would help to reveal the consumer perspective of these impacted individuals, a voice frequently missing in the literature. This future research agenda reflects the greater role for self-help and other client driven services in members’ recovery anticipated in the coming years. As our understanding of the role of self-help and traditional services in members’ lives increases, so too will our ability to assist clients by better understanding the role of self-help in their lives, being cognizant of the messages we impart about self-help, being familiar with the community narratives of self-help groups within our communities, and making appropriate referrals to self-help groups for our clients.

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