Self-help groups viewed by mental health professionals: a survey and comments

This paper presents a summary of a national survey of the utilization and evaluation of self-help groups by outpatient mental health facilities making and receiving referrals from self-help groups. Evaluations of self-help groups' effectiveness tended to be favorable, and respondents generally believed that they could play an important role in a mental health delivery system. Only 30.7%, however, believed that the probability was high that their agencies would be interested in exploring how their activities might be integrated with those of self-help groups.