[Using natural helping systems]

Professional psychiatric help alone is not sufficient especially in the treatment of chronic mental illness. One must offer additional support also known as social support or social network. Informal helpers are family members, friends, civilian helpers, self-help groups with contracts to media and political levels and so on. In spite of different aims they have a great deal in common such as free-of-charge help, assistance to professional helpers not as their substitutes, and being in touch with normal everyday life. Any tensions between professional and informal helpers should be relieved in a constructive manner. Support by informal carers must also be assessed although it is difficult to find the correct approach, since so many variables are involved. The significance of promoting a social network for mental health becomes particularly evident in view of the reduction of the social network in persons suffering from schizophrenia.