Effectiveness of The Seven Challenges® for adults: It’s not just because of self-disclosure

ABSTRACT

This study examined the longer-term effectiveness of The Seven Challenges® Program, a comprehensive counseling program that incorporates work on drug and co-occurring problems. This study also examined the role of self-disclosure in achieving positive outcomes for adult drug court clients. Results indicated that The Seven Challenges Program elicited more self-disclosure and was more effective than standard cognitive-behavioral treatment in sustained reduction of alcohol use, mental distress, emotional problems, and behavioral issues to 6 months post-intake. Additionally, The Seven Challenges Program was effective at reducing criminal activity. Greater self-disclosure among The Seven Challenges clients accounted for their greater perceived impact of treatment, but not for the effectiveness of The Seven Challenges relative to standard cognitive-behavioral treatment. These findings strengthen the existing evidence base of the effectiveness of The Seven Challenges.

KEYWORDS:

• Co-occurring issues
• cognitive-behavioral treatment
• self-disclosure
• substance use disorder
• The Seven Challenges

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to acknowledge the contributions of D7 Treatment staff who collected the data utilized in this study. The authors are also appreciative of the funding support from D7 Treatment. The present study and the development of this article were supported by funding from D7 Treatment.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

¹ For brevity, statistics for the main effect of treatment, which do not test the hypotheses, are available upon request.

Additional information

Funding

The work was supported by the D7 Treatment [Not applicable].