Talk:Self-help groups for mental health

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— Craigtalbert 07:39, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Some new suggestions

There's a long bit about EA in Chapter 12 on Internet Addiction in this document.

• [1]

I also wasn't aware of this book by Marion Flesch, but if a copy could be obtained it may be of interest. Currently going for $257 dollars !!!

• [2]

- Scarpy (talk) 23:54, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

BPDFamily.com

I'm going to be WP:BOLD and remove this section. While this group is notable, and the information is cited, I have two concerns. First, this group is specifically focused on treatment of borderline personality disorder and those affected by it rather than a broader focus on mental health. Second, the information here has a very promotional unencyclopedic tone. I believe it may be appropriate for the see also section, but that's it. -- Scarpy (talk) 20:27, 17 March 2016 (UTC)

This deletion should be given further consideration. BPDFamily is one of the largest self help groups in the world and is recognized by major healthcare systems. Specialization is not be a disqualifying factor. Two of the other listed groups specialize Neurotics Anonymous (neurosis) and Emotions Anonymous (depression). 2602:306:8308:CAF0:BD81:C728:1932:8ECE (talk) 13:52, 6 September 2016 (UTC)

I have to disagree. This article is written for groups that focus broadly on mental health, and not treating specific disorders. If you look specifically at the articles for Neurotics Anonymous and Emotions Anonymous, you'll see their scopes are larger than neurosis and depression. If we were to include any group focusing on any issue, we'd have to include groups like Toastmasters International and La Leche League, all of which, like BPDFamily, are great organizations doing great work but not in scope for this article. - Scarpy (talk) 16:53, 15 February 2017 (UTC)

Description of Emotions Anonymous

@Dougmcdonell: In general we should avoid using self-published sources in Wikipedia, and especially direct quotations from them to describe themselves (see the policy WP:SPS). So we really can't include the description of emotions anonymous here by emotions anonymous and keep with those policies. At the same time, while the previous version is not a direct quote, it's still a summary of self-published material. (see this diff). I think the best thing to do here is to use the description from Kurtz and Chambon's 1987 article, which is the only WP:RS (published article meeting the criteria for a reliable source in Wikipedia) I'm aware of that defines EA, I'm going to suggest we use it here. Their summary is "EA is open to anyone who wants to achieve emotional well-being." - Scarpy (talk) 23:16, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

I also added a citation to Father Ed Dowling: Bill Wilson’s Sponsor that has a footnote explaining the relationship between EA and N/A as the other citation used in that section was also to a self-published source. - Scarpy (talk) 23:51, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Hi @Scarpy: thanks for your note, I'm satisfied with the removal of "depression and other mental illnesses" which didn't belong there at all. On the topic of reliable sources, if a statement sounds plausible, and is consistent with other statements in the article then I don't have any purpose in challenging the reliability of a self-published source. In this specific case I see no possibility where the EA web page could possibly be mistaken about their purpose. As it turns out you've removed "fellowship of men and women", which wasn't helpful. Dougmcdonell (talk) 01:19, 18 November 2017 (UTC)

Self-published sources

@Katmeg177: I appreciate you're interest in this topic, but please don't use an organizations website as a source when there are other options. Good sources are Google Scholar and Google Books (assuming the books are not self-published). More details in WP:V - Scarpy (talk) 23:29, 14 August 2018 (UTC)

Self-published source are still bad

Please see WP:SPS. I removed the sections on NAMI and Hearing Voices and they either were incomplete citations or were from WP:SPS. Please please please read WP:SPS before adding material to this page. - Scarpy (talk) 18:00, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Sexual predation section

The article currently used as the citation for this section does not specifically discuss sexual predation in support groups. But I'm going to leave it here with the "additional citation needed" tag because this is a very important criticism and people interested in this groups should be aware of it. In twelve-step programs this is often called "13th stepping" and is well documented. This section should be improved with additional citations. - Scarpy (talk) 18:07, 19 February 2019 (UTC)

Expanding the lead?

@Megaman en m: you want to take a crack at it? - Scarpy (talk) 17:32, 28 June 2022 (UTC)

I most likely will not be getting around to this, sadly.--Megaman en m (talk) 12:44, 3 July 2022 (UTC)