Psychiatric Support Group Report, Essay Example

Psychiatric Support Group Report for Alcoholics Anonymous

For the purposes of this project on psychiatric support groups, a meeting for the Baldwin Support Group branch of Alcoholics Anonymous was attended.  The meeting was on February 2, 2014, at (please insert location of the meeting).   This was to observe the functioning of a psychiatric support group and to understand its purpose, analyze its effectiveness and to determine what effect it would have on future nursing practice.

The Purpose Of Alcoholics Anonymous

The purpose of Alcoholics Anonymous is for people who suffer from alcoholism to get together and share the concerns, struggles, and challenges of the disease and, above all, to stay sober.  Alcoholics Anonymous helps to promote sobriety through both closed meetings, which are meant just for alcoholics, and also open meetings where members can bring family or friends to support them as they cope with their illness.  The theory underlying this group is, that by being able to talk about the specific problems that alcoholism brings with other people who are going through or have gone through the same experience, the members of the group will be able to help each other cope.

Effectiveness of the Group

This group seems like it would be very effective for ongoing emotional support for alcoholics and for their families and loved ones who are struggling to cope with the challenges of staying sober. Because alcoholism is considered a disease for which there is no cure, the challenges that alcoholics face will last them a lifetime and for a chronic condition like this, support groups would be very effective since the support, too, would be ongoing. The conversations in this group were frank without being judgmental.  One member had testimony about a recent relapse into past drinking behavior, and many members had good advice for him as he struggled to get back to sobriety.

Application to Future Nursing Experience

Since alcoholism is such a prevalent disease, it is very like that most nurses will either interact with patients who are alcoholics or who have family members with this illness.  Whether or not this is the primary diagnosis, alcoholism can certainly effect things like compliance with the plan of care, so a good knowledge of this disease would certainly be helpful to the nurse.  Visiting groups like Alcoholics Anonymous would hopefully give the nurse more compassion for the struggles which alcoholics go through when trying to cope with their disease and make them less judgmental when dealing with patients (or family members) with this particular illness.