Self-help in America a social movement perspective

Abstract

By its very definition, self-help suggests a person's autonomous effort to solve a problem. Yet, as Alfred H. Katz argues in this sociohistorical introduction to the self-help culture, what links America's diverse self-help organizations is the shared belief that the group experience itself allows the individual to work through his or her problem and live a normal life. Taking personal testimonials in tandem with scholarly research, Katz analyzes what he calls the "phenomenon" of self-help in the United States, where possibly as many as 730,000 such groups with at least 10 to 15 million members currently operate. That programs managed by human-services professionals and agencies have failed to address particular public needs is attested to by the rapid rate at which self-help groups have been forming over the last 20 years, according to Katz

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