Original Articles
A Study on the Supporting Functions of Self-help Groups for the Parents with School Refusal Children
1999 Volume 3 Issue 1 Pages 12-20
Details
1999 Volume 3 Issue 1 Pages 12-20
In Japan, there are many self-help groups for the parents whosechildren refuse attend school. And there are two kind of such gr-oups: one is organized by specialists such as psychologists, and the other is by the parents themselves. These two growps will be to have differnt purpose on their members.The most striking difference is the later have no therapeutic-responsibility for the members.
The purpose of this study is to examine how self-help groups work to help its members. At first, from the literature, following four category of function about their groups can be identified.
1) To give knowledge about the problem
2) To build up communication skills between members
3) To promote self awareness of the members
4) To extend the community
First three functions are common to any kind of groups,but theforth is peculiar to self-help groups as it distinguish self-help groups from group-psychotherapy. Because psychotherapy will not provide community but restricted relationship. To clarify these category of functions, the case study about self-help group for parentswill be presented here.
