Substance Abuse And Family Therapy

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Substance Abuse Treatment And Family Therapy A Treatment Improvement Protocol 39 TIP U.S. DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration Center for Substance Abuse Treatment www.samhsa.gov FAMILY THERAPY Substance Abuse Treatment And Family Therapy This TIP, Substance Abuse Treatment and Family Therapy, addresses how substance abuse affects the entire family and how substance abuse treatment providers can use principles from family therapy to change the interactions among family members. The TIP provides basic information about family therapy for substance abuse treatment professionals, and basic information about substance abuse treatment for family therapists. The TIP…show more content…
Many substance abuse treatment counselors base their understanding of a family’s relation to substance abuse on a disease model of substance abuse. Within this model, practitioners have come to appreciate substance abuse as a “family disease”—that is, a disease that affects all members of a family as a result of the substance abuse of one or more members. They should understand that substance abuse creates negative changes in the individual’s moods, behaviors, relationships with the family, and sometimes even physical or emotional health. Family therapists, on the other hand, for the most part have adopted a family systems model. It conceptualizes substance abuse as a symptom of dysfunction in the family. It is this focus on the family system, more than the inclusion of more people, that defines family therapy. Despite these basic differences, the fields of family therapy and substance abuse treatment are compatible. Clinicians in both fields address the client’s interactions with a system that involves something outside the self. Multiple systems affect people with substance use disorders at different levels (individual, family, culture, and society), and truly comprehensive treatment would take all of them into consideration. However, some differences exist among many, but not all, substance abuse treatment and family therapy settings and practitioners: •Family interventions. Psychoeducation and multifamily groups are more common in the substance abuse treatment field than in family therapy. Family therapists will focus more on intrafamily relationships, while substance abuse treatment providers concentrate on helping clients achieve and maintain abstinence. •Process and content. Family therapy generally attends more to the process of family interaction, while substance abuse treatment
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