Self-help in America

Although Katz uses social movement criteria in looking at why and how self-help groups work, he notes that the huge diversity among such groups and their lack of a unifying political force renders the description social trend more accurate. To highlight the respective characteristics of the two main types of self-help groups, 12-step and non-12-step, Katz compares a successful example of the former - Adult Children of Alcoholics - with one of the latter - the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill. The ideology of Alcoholics Anonymous - that personal change can only be achieved through spiritual belief or conversion, as reflected in its listing of the 12 steps members must take toward recovery from addiction - is where the first category gets its name