The Politics of Self-Help

Abstract

The article explores the politics of self-help. The self-help movement has expanded since 1976, but the concerns of political progressives have not diminished. The trend of self-help groups empowering individuals and leading to political activism can be seen in the women' movement, which began in the 1960s with small, consciousness-raising groups and gradually emerged as a full-fledged social and political movement. A similar evolution occurred with the disabled rights movement, and more recently with the gay rights cause. All of the above movements began by establishing a shared sense of identity, with the self-help form functioning as a critical step in leveraging them to larger social movement and political action. Self-help groups of varying types have made dozens of inroads into individual policy areas. Even a very incomplete list would include: National Association of Psychiatric Survivors, which has begun to provide a vehicle for psychiatric patients to exert some influence over their treatment and status and The Mental Health Consumers, a group of former and present patients that has played a major role in improving mental health legislation and the policies of The National Institute of Mental Health. Support and criticism of self-help does not divide itself nearly along conservative, liberal, or radical political lines. The Bush administration was attracted to self-help, for obvious reason that it provides an economical alternative to costly government programs; and as far back as 1980, the Republican party adopted a plank in its platform calling for more self-help initiatives. The Republicans, however, have an ambivalent stance toward self-help, and it is easy to understand their skittishness, when one considers that the political slant of many self-help groups is decidedly progressive.