Additional Considerations

The therapeutic benefits of support groups in the management of serious disease has been growing (and coming under fire). The greatest concern is the idea that in some cancer support groups there is the belief that one has created his/her own cancer for discoverable reasons, and, therefore, should be able to get rid of it; again for discoverable reasons. The corollary to that kind of thinking is that, should one fail to recover from his disease, s-he is a failure[1]. The criticisms leveled against such thinking are all valid. Such thinking is an “awfulizing” of the sort with which we all have some experience. However, in criticizing, we hobble ourselves in our movement toward our healing by judging. We must reframe our thinking.

Many different support systems aid healing though “working” a personal “process”. However, the basis of thinking for most of them is that something is “wrong” with the individual. This is the conundrum of medicine, which focuses on disease and illness, instead of focusing on health and wellness. This confusing contradiction makes it nearly impossible to focus on what we would want for ourselves; namely health. The chief obstacle to our healing is our attitude of “wrong” when we hold it toward both medical science and ourselves. They both fail to solve the problem because they focus on it! Perhaps we should allow medical science to be expert in therapy, which is “medical treatment of disease”. Then we need another kind of expert—an expert in healing—who can focus on what is "right" with a person's life.

The individual group participant may move away from traditional medical helping methods toward alternative methods of treating illness. A “support group” is just such an alternative, offering resources in a group of like-experienced souls. The group experience is decades old, and tradition has established its validity. We are applying the principles of group work in many ways today, and are beginning to understand more of its potential to facilitate healing. We are learning that the group helps the participant discover her or his own inner resources to become whole. We are discovering that each of us is expert in her or his own healing, and in no one else’s.

The group is much like the individual; its experience is limited, and the ability to explore that experience is limited as well. The group must preserve the validity and integrity of each individual, or else the group is susceptible to the pitfalls of creating disease by focusing on “what’s wrong”. In any group, there may be members who perceive that they “got” their disease for certain “stress-related” reasons, while others perceive that “bad” genes caused their disease, and others look to viruses or cosmic rays or smoking, or what-have-you as cause. It is essential that such groups recognize and acknowledge of the validity of each experience. In order for any group to be effective, it must find the mechanism for such validation. The most famous example of such a mechanism is the “twelve step” program of Alcoholics Anonymous.

However, the specific “surrender” wording of that program is not always applicable to other conditions of illness, and for that, in my opinion and experience, the presence of a particular kind of group “leader” is necessary to establish the mechanism of validation. Since its inception, HOPE has been developing the concept of a “ HOPE Group guide” for its support group "leader". Moreover, to call such a guide a “facilitator” is, for the author, inappropriate, because to “facilitate” (make easy) is inadequate… some people need to enter their own danger waters in order to find their healing. That journey is very difficult and cannot be “made easy”. The person present to the other’s process better “guides” the traveler through the rapids by kind and loving means, knowing that the rapids must be navigated if healing is to occur. A guide knows how to run a set of rapids. Every guide must be physically, emotionally, mentally, and spiritually sound. S-he stays in contact with the rest of HOPE to demonstrate these qualities to the organization. It is helpful to have had a personal experience with illness and/or disease, however, it is vitally important to have a well-established healing and recovery. The guide must not try to help the butterfly out of its chrysalis, for, as previously noted, the creature will die from being helped!