Recovery Groups A Guide to Creating, Leading, and Working With Groups For Addictions and Mental Health Conditions

by Kurtz, Linda Farris

• ISBN13: 9780199362974
• ISBN10: 0199362971
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2014-11-28
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

This book focuses on community self-help and support groups specifically in the context of recovery movements in addiction and mental health care. The idea of groups of recovering people meeting together may seem like a simple one and not one requiring much effort and thought; however, as this book will show, this is not the case.

In Recovery Groups: A Guide to Creating, Leading, and Working with Groups for Addictions and Mental Health Conditions Linda Kurtz breaks down the recovery movement for addictions and mental health care into three sections. In the first section recovery concepts are broken down into two fields: how they differ and how they come together. The second section focuses on methods of working with independent self-help groups and leadership in support groups. Kurtz touches on the study of helping mechanisms, social climate, group teachings, group structure, and how to use each of these to improve group performance. In the third section of the book, Kurtz examines social and community actions from members involved in Twelve-Step fellowships and consumer survivor organizations. The final section also details programs that provide employment, housing, and mutual support, explaining how to accomplish these goals without a large expense. This book will be useful to students, professional mental health and addiction workers, recovery coaches and peer support specialists, and group members and leaders who are interested in this topic.

Author Biography

Linda Farris Kurtz is retired from a 26 year career teaching social work and is an Emeritus Professor, School of Social Work, Eastern Michigan University. She practiced social work in the mental health field for 14 years. She grew up in Kansas City Missouri, attended university at Washburn University of Topeka where she held her first social work position as a social work aide at the Topeka State Hospital in 1958. She received her MSW from the University of Pittsburgh in 1965 and her Doctorate in Public Administration from the University of Georgia in 1983. She lives with her husband Ernest Kurtz in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Table of Contents

Dedication
Foreword
Preface

Chapter 1 - Introduction

Part I

Chapter 2 - The Recovery Approach in Mental Health and Addiction
Chapter 3 - How Recovery Groups Differ from Other Kinds of Groups
Chapter 4 - Groups for Addiction and Mental Health Conditions

Part II

Chapter 5 - Connecting with Independent Self-Help Recovery Groups
Chapter 6 - Facilitating Support Groups
Chapter 7 - How Recovery Groups Help
Chapter 8 - Analyzing a Group's Climate, Philosophy, and Structure
Chapter 9 - Who Needs a Group?: The Process of Affiliation
Chapter 10 - Four Models of Self-Help Recovery Groups

Part III

Chapter 11 - Recovery Groups and Advocacy
Chapter 12 - Housing, Employment, and Mutual
Chapter 13 - Online Groups

Conclusion
Acknowledgements
Glossary
Index