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Abstract
Professionals are involved in self-help groups in a variety of roles as advising experts, facilitators and even as group leaders. A few studies focus on attitudes toward professional involvement, but very little is known about the nature of this collaboration. The study follows a collaborative support group project between a team of health professionals at a regional hospital in Norway and a Chronic Fatigue Syndrome patients’ group. It is arguably an advantage for professionals to decide upon the aim of a joint intervention in dialogue with the participants, but simply asking the participants what their aims are does not guarantee actual agreement. As this case study demonstrates, participants may have reason to conceal their objectives.
Notes
1This type of reciprocal relationship between a patient organisation and a medical expert has also been pointed out in another Norwegian study (Glenton & Oxman, Citation1998). Their study discovered that patient organisations in Norway often prefer to rely on medical experts for interpretation of expert knowledge, and typically the organisations depend on a very limited number of such experts. For organisations that represent sufferers of diffuse ailments one criterion for selecting their expert patron is that he shares the group's understanding of the relevant condition.
2This CFS group uses the concept ‘post-viral CFS’ which indicates that this is a physiological disease set off by a viral infection in contrast to the broader concept of CFS, which they claim includes a range of physiological and psychological conditions, e.g. ‘burnt-out syndrome’ with the common symptom of tiredness.
3Clearly this problem does not apply to all kinds of SHGs. One would expect it to be more relevant for groups focusing on social change than in groups emphasising personal change. Nylund (Citation2000) registered different patterns of collaboration with other sectors between the two types of SHGs.