Contradictory Effects of Social Support in Rehabilitation

Abstract

During the past two decades the concept of social support has become popular with health and rehabilitation researchers (see Veiel & Baumann, 1992). Major reviews of the social support literature which appeared in the 1980s (for example, Cohen & Wills, 1985) indicated that people who have socially supportive relationships are less likely to experience a wide range of negative physical and psychological health consequences and also that social support can play a 'buffering' role in protecting individuals from the pathogenic influence of stressful events. Subsequent to the encouraging tone of the early reviews of the positive health benefits of social support, recent writers (such as, Rook, 1992; Schwarzer & Leppin, 1992; Vinokur & van Ryn, 1993) have been much more restrained in their claims about the health benefits of social support and have pointed out that social support can, in some situations, be expected to have detrimental effects on particular individual achievements. The emerging 'negative' social support literature as it applies to rehabilitation is reviewed, together with an analysis of these negative findings from two distinct theoretical perspectives: the behavioural, and the social psychological.