The 1970's have been described as the self-help decade. This paper has shown how the groups explicitly focus on certain specific but simple technical problems while implicity addressing a whole range of everyday problems of living. Self-help groups attempt to solve these technical and social problems by a process based on shared experience in a context of mutual understanding. An essential ingredient of the self-help solution is to do things together, while social activities with members outside the group meetings sustain the self-help method and give new meaning to a member's life and to his conception of his place in the world.
20世纪70年代被描述为自助的十年。本文展示了这些团体如何在明确关注某些特定但简单的技术问题的同时，含蓄地解决一系列日常生活问题。自助团体试图通过在相互理解的背景下基于共同经验的过程来解决这些技术和社会问题。自助解决方案的一个关键要素是一起做事，而团体会议之外与成员的社交活动维持着自助方法，并赋予成员的生活以及他对自己在世界上位置的认知新的意义。
