ConclusionThe new paradigm calls for the restructuring, redistribution, and expansion of helping behavior by those who ordinarily function as consumers of help. Consumers are to become producers of prosumers. By so doing they expand the help‐giving resources quantitatively by converting helpees into helpers. The help is also changed qualitatively because the peers and the self‐helpers possess an indigenous or inside understanding of the problems and the people to whom they offer help. Heins Kohut, the brilliant psychoanalyst, suggests that the key to therapeutic change may not be insight or understanding, but rather being understood. Who better to understand than those who have been there?
Problems related to the introduction and training of nonprofessionals in various structures (neighborhood service centers, service agencies, etc.) are presented. New approaches to phased, on-the-job training and the coordination of training and supervision are proposed. Problems related to the role ambiguity of the nonprofessional are discussed. Ten recommendations are offered relating to the group interview in the selecting of aides, the formation of nonprofessional groups and unions, the development of career lines, the new participation ideology of indigenous nonprofessionals (distinguishing them from traditional nonprofessionals, e.g., psychiatric aides), the limitations of traditional T groups (sensitivity groups), etc.
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