Women help each other to battle breast cancer, to deal with depression and to stop smoking. They do it every day and in every community across the nation. Unfortunately, the term self-help is somewhat misleading, conjuring up everything from relationship manuals to alternative medicine. Self-help groups are not therapy groups. They are informal networks of individuals who share a common issue or life situation.
Members get together either in person, over the phone, or in chat rooms on the Internet.
They share information. They create hope. Hyndman, from the Centre for Health Promotion at the University of Toronto, found that group members with chronic mental illness spend fewer days in hospital, women with metastatic breast cancer may live longer, and caregivers may have better interpersonal skills, less anger towards their care recipient, and a decrease in depression. There are limitations however. Self-help groups are not for every woman, and they are certainly not the only 'answer'.