The Evolution of Self-Help
Subtitle: How a Health Movement Became an Institution
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
Published: November 27, 2007
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 204
ISBN-13: 9780230600379
Subjects: Psychotherapy; Social welfare & social services; Social Science; Sociology; Psychotherapy - Group; Social Psychology; Social Science / Sociology / General; Sociology - General; History; Self-help techniques; United States
Description: "This book is about the evolution of self-help movement organizations in the U.S. It explores the ways in which the marginal practices of sufferers of chronic conditions like Lupus, Parkinson's, or alcoholism became the common solution for all manner of medical, behavioral, and psychological problems. Since the dramatic growth and ubiquity of self-help during the mid-to-late twentieth century places it high among other social institutions supporting healthcare, the mapping of the steady diffusion of psychotherapeutic support groups, their increasingly broad cultural acceptance, and their hard-won professional recognition provides insight into the processes of institutional change in healthcare."--Jacket.