Support Groups and Women Research Paper

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Groups for Relationship Issues

Support groups do what their title implies that they do -- they provide emotional, psychological and community support for individuals that are struggling with problems. This paper discusses support groups that exist to help people resolve romantic and other relationship issues that can stand in the way of a normal, peaceful existence. This paper delves into several kinds of support groups that deal with relationship issues, and discusses the potential solutions that different support groups offer to troubled participants.

What are Support Groups? What do Support Groups actually do?

Generally speaking, support groups for relationship problems or other issues provide a mechanism that offers some kind of therapy in response to "...the needs of people dealing with stress caused by life transitions, crises, or chronic conditions" (Fagan, et al., 1996). There has been a "proliferation of support groups in recent years," Fagan writes, which is a reflection of the "increasing need for formal and info0rmal sources of assistance" in a society that is experiencing "rapid social change" and the geographical spread of families and friends (Fagan, 378).

Participation in support groups generally involves group members being willing to share very personal experiences "...in order to create a cohesive supportive system," Fagan writes. It is important to remember that support groups must be responsive to the common needs of individuals within the group. A leader of a support group cannot rule over the group like a dictator, but rather, he or she must share "authority with participants" but on the other hand, he or she must show the leadership that facilitates good concrete discussion and must also support the promotion of "a supportive environment" (Fagan, 378).

In the case of a support group for individuals that are struggling in a significant way with a relationship -- be it a family relationship (between father and daughter, or mother and son, or vice-versa) or a love relationship -- members of the support group must open up with each other and specifically identify their conflicts. Because it is very likely that once a support group member reveals a particularly thorny issue that has occurred in a relationship, others will relate to that thorny issue and a positive discussion can ensue.

Historical Context for Support Groups for Relationships

Louis XIV (born in 1638 and died in 1713) is said by some authors to be the first political leader who recognized the need for a social environment which would provide support groups for girls. In the New York Magazine (1993) there is a record of Louis XIV founding a school at Versailles called "L'Ecole Saint-Cyr," in which older women would listen and work with younger women in a support group setting.

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It's not that young women are already embroiled in miserable relationships, but these support groups prepared them for what they may encounter later in life. There may have been support groups (informal or formal) prior to Louis XIV's establishing of a strategy for young women, but it is an historical fact that Louis XIV established what would later become "the finishing school" (New York Magazine).

Personalities were being shaped in this school to prepare upper-class / younger European women for life in the higher echelons of society, and that meant being able to achieve social and romantic success within society; after all, marriage and family have always been the backbone of societies, and young women needed to be trained and counseled as to what they would encounter later in their lives vis-a-vis romance, sex, and marriage.

"For centuries most of upper-class college education in France and England" had been established "with an eye toward sculpting the personality as carefully as the intellectual faculties" (New York Magazine). The only other educational settings for young women at that time (in the late 17th century and early 18th century) were convents where Roman Catholic nuns were being trained for service and celibacy.

Meanwhile, in the 20th century, another form of support group with a relationship theme evolved out of the college and university settings. The support groups were called "lemon sessions," according to the New York Magazine. At Yale University, where apparently lemon sessions first gained acceptability and had impacts on women's lives, on Thursday nights girls would walk "...silently and single file, in black flannel suits, white shirts, and black knit ties with gold pins" to a building with no windows, or "a dozen or so girls might end up in someone's dorm" (New York Magazine).

One girl would be "it" and others would "light into her personality, pulling it to pieces to analyze every defect"; and those defects in this support group setting might be everything from her bad breath, her laughter, her unconventional clothes, "her awkwardness...her suck-up fawning, latent lesbianism, or whatever" (New York Magazine). There were also lemon sessions for boys, during which discussions would take place about masturbation and boys in the support group would have to fess up: "Yes! I do it!" guilty support group individuals would confess (New York Magazine).

Identified Group Treatment Description

The typical behavior that is associated with support groups -- which are not to be confused with "self-help" groups or "group therapy….....

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