Family Systems and Motivational Interviewing: A Systemic-Motivational Model for Treatment of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems

SUMMARY

Despite growing evidence of the impact of substance abuse disorders on families and the effectiveness of family-based treatment approaches for these disorders, family therapy remains an underutilized modality for these conditions. One reason may be the relative paucity of treatment models combining family systems concepts with current advances in substance abuse treatment. This paper describes one such approach, called the Systemic Motivational Model, a treatment model that has as its goal the integration of the empirically-grounded family systems model of alcoholism treatment first developed in the 1980s (the Family Life History model) with the core ideas encompassed in Motivational Enhancement Therapy.

KEYWORDS:

• Alcoholism treatment
• family therapy
• motivational interviewing
• transtheoretical model
• alcohol-other drug problems
• families