Communicating Social Support in Online Self-help Groups for Anxiety and Depression: A Qualitative Discourse Analysis

摘要

Research showed that the communication of social support in online self-help groups was therapeutic to participants. However, previous studies tended to focus on the content shared and have overlooked the communicative behaviors of the communication. Drawing upon the framework of discourse analysis, this study manifests the communicative patterns of the communication of social support in online self-help groups for anxiety and depression. It is argued that understanding communicative behaviors is beneficial for people to gauge the therapeutic effect of participation in the groups and to become integrated into the groups.