SOCIAL SUPPORT AS THE UNIVERSAL HUMAN NEED IN THE CONTEXT OF SOLVING THE PROBLEM OF SOCIAL WORK WITH PEOPLE WITH MENTAL HEALTH PROBLEMS

The article deals with particular qualities of social support and emotional support, which is the component of social support between people with mental health problems in self-help groups. This work is based on the statistic analysis. Relevance of the research is due to the lack of a consistent analysis of the needs and opportunities of providing social support to people with mental health problems in the context of solving problems of their socialization and re-socialization in modern society. The analysis showed that the most of the research studies regarding the need of emotional and social support sees this topic in opposition to norm - deviation, health - disease, presence - absence of a sense of self-sufficiency and emotional well-being, explaining certain psychological phenomena. This approach endangers perception of human being as a value, considering the prospects of its development and social well-being only from the standpoint standards. The author's method "Scale measuring interpersonal support» was used as the main research tool, which contained 40 statements concerning the group members' perception of access to the potential social support and its components / functions: information, material, instrumental, psychological support unit. The study had to examine statistically significant differences in the assessment of their capabilities in the social support of persons with mental health problems, who were the members of self-help groups, in comparison with persons without experience of mental problems who did not attend self-help groups. Comparative analysis of the perception of social support by persons with mental problems, which are members of self-help groups, and perception of social support persons without experience of mental problems who do not attend self-help groups, shows that there is no difference in the assessment of their need and trusting in supportive relationships. This confirms the value and importance of interactions that create the opportunity to have a trusting relationship, despite the presence or absence of mental health problems. The study proved that meeting the needs of social and emotional support for people with mental problems by self-help groups can be seen as an effective way of addressing issues of their social rehabilitation.