The Mutual Aid Model of Group Work

The Mutual Aid Model of group work practice (Gitterman, 2004) has its roots in the practice theory proposed by William Schwartz (1961) which was introduced in the article, “The Social Worker in the Group”. Schwartz (1961) envisioned the group as an “enterprise in mutual aid, an alliance of individuals who need each other in varying degrees, to work on certain common problems” (p.266). Schwartz elaborated: “the fact is that this is a helping system in which clients need each other as well as the worker. This need to use each other, to create not one but many helping relationships, is a vital ingredient of the group process and constitutes a need over and above the specific tasks for which the group was formed” (1961, p. 266).
Schwartz (1976) regarded this approach as resonant with the demands of a variety of group types including, natural and formed; therapeutic and task; open and closed; and voluntary and mandatory. Both the Mutual Aid Model and the concept of mutual aid have endured and continue to inform social work practice with groups (Gitterman, 2004).
Schwartz (1961) premised his approach to practice on ideas expressed by Kropotkin (1903), Dewey (1910), Mead (1934) and Simmel (1955) that illuminated the nature of the relationship between the individual and society. The model was premised on the proposition that there exists a reciprocal, symbiotic relationship between the individual and society, a dynamic encapsulated in the small group (Schwartz, 1961). This type of mutualistic symbiosis was expressed by Schwartz (1971) as the “need to use each other” to work on resolving common problems (p.7).
Schwartz (1977) contrasted this model with approaches that failed to collaboratively work with groups. More importantly he rejected the medical model wherein the worker “decides what is wrong”, “labels it” and prescribes the treatment (Schwartz, 1977, p.1331). This was not to say that the worker avoids using prior professionally obtained knowledge but rather the worker uses this knowledge to deepen “preliminary empathy” (Schwartz, 1977, p.1334). A similar perspective was advanced by Tropp (1977b) who suggested that the worker should employ a phenomenological approach and attend to “current group and individual behavior rather than on prior personality diagnosis” (p.96).
A concept common amongst social group work approaches has been the ‘two-client’ perspective which views both the individual and the group as the two clients engaged with the worker (Trecker, 1948; Schwartz, 1977; Steinberg, 2004). For Schwartz (1977) this dualism was resolved by observing that they both are inextricably linked, engaged in reciprocal relationship. Both the individual and the group “needs the other for its own life and growth” argued Schwartz (1961, p. 153). From this stance flowed Schwartz’ beliefs about the mediating role of the worker, a role he argued belonged to the social work profession at large (Schwarz, 1961, 1971, 1977).
Schwartz (1961) viewed the group as an organic whole and identified “the group organism as a complex of moving, interdependent human beings” (p.18). Expanding on this perspective he identified four main features of the group: the group is a “collective, in which people face and interact with each other; people need each; the purpose of the group is oriented by needing to work on common problems or tasks; and the work of the group is embedded in the function of the agency” (Schwartz, 1976, p. 185).
Schwartz (1971) proposed that the tasks of the worker and the members of the group are interdependent but different, an idea he expressed as “parallel process” (Schwartz, 1971, p.10). The members of the group are charged with both helping themselves and each other (Schwartz, 1971, 1976). The nature of the help could be understood as deriving from the exchange of members’ personal views and experience as well as the expression of feeling (Schwartz, 1977).


Evolution of the Mutual Aid Model

The model proposed by Schwartz followed a historical, theoretical path along the mainstream of social group work (Papell and Rothman, 1980; Tropp, 1977a). According to Tropp (1977a) “the mainstream was more deeply explored by William Schwartz, who further elaborated the concepts of group function and worker involvement, while adding the dimensions of the mutual aid phenomenon and the contractual relation between worker and group” (p.1322).
Schwartz (1961, 1964) initially thought of this approach as an organic systems model (as he viewed the group as an organic whole) later to refer to it as the mediating model and then the interactionist model (Schwartz, 1977). The model initially proposed by Schwartz has been further developed most notably by Lawrence Shulman and Alex Gitterman, who have since referred to this model as the Mutual Aid Model (Gitterman, 2004, 2005; Shulman, 1979, 1992, 1999, 2005b; and Steinberg, 1997, 2004).
The change in nomenclature reflects shifting focus on the various facets of the model with attention to its philosophical underpinnings (reciprocal); to the focus on worker function and activity (mediating); to the emphasis on member interaction (interactional); and with the current appellation, the Mutual Aid Model, to the quality and nature of the interaction of the members (Gitterman, 2004; Middleman and Wood, 1990a; and Steinberg, 1997). Recently Shulman (2005a) introduced the alternate appellation “Mutual Aid Group Treatment” (MAGT) to contrast worker lead treatment groups with mutual aid self help groups (MASH).
Subsequent to presentation of this practice theory, Schwartz elaborated on this model in the following articles and/or chapters” “Toward a Strategy of Group Work Practice (1961); “Small Group Science and Group Work Practice” (1964); “Analysis of Papers Presented on Working Definitions of Group Work Practice” (1964); “On The Use of Groups In Social Work Practice” (1971a); “Social Group Work: The Interactionist Approach (1977); and “Between Client and System: The Mediating Function” (1976). Finally, an unfinished text believed to be written from the period of 1968 to 1972, entitled “Social Work with Groups: The Search for a Method”, was published in a collection of Schwartz’ work in 1994 by Toby Berman-Rossi called “Social Work: The Collected Writings of William Schwartz”.
Noting the importance of this model, Papell and Rothman (1966) identified the model’s primary contribution to social group work practice theory: “its outstanding contribution” is as “the construct of a mutual aid system with professional interventions” (p. 130). For Papell and Rothman, the conceptual strength of the model lay in the observation that “what had been vaguely referred to in the past as ‘helping members help themselves’ has acquired a higher level of theoretical statement. It is now possible to consider the attributes and culture of a specialized system and to transmit the skills necessary to support its realization. This is probably the single most important contribution that group work method can make to the social work profession at large (italics mine, 1966, p. 130). Sharpening Papell and Rothman’s observation, Schwartz (1976) would note that the worker invested in cultivating mutual aid had “the additional task of not only helping people help themselves, but to help each other as well” (p. 194).
Mutual aid would come to be regarded as a hallowed concept in the practice of social group work (Tropp, 1977b). Hartford (1976) noted that the cultivation of mutual aid had become central to generic group work practice. Echoing this observation, Papell and Rothman (1980) noted that “the conception of the group as a mutual aid system had become a universal one in all of group work practice” and had become a feature of the ‘mainstream’ of practice (1980, p. 9).