The therapists' experience of alcohol addiction treatment – a qualitative study

Abstract

The present study is a qualitative study, based on audio-taped interviews with 12 therapists, on how therapists view their own role as therapists within the alcohol treatment areas. The study describes how the therapists create an image of the patients they treat, and the rationale, they build the treatment on. The analysis of the therapists' stories indicated that therapists based their treatment on a platform that was constructed and negotiated by means of various kinds of information and knowledge. From this stock of information the therapists pulled out and interpreted elements that made coherent sense to them and provided indications about where to go next in the course of treatment. The stories about treatment were told within the frames of a recognisable structure, consisting of the patient's predisposition to treatment, empowerment, transformation and re-construction. Within this structure, the therapists rhetorically made use of various patterns to describe their communication with the patients. The rhetoric can be regarded as an indication of how the therapists perceive their role as therapist. As the therapist viewed it, treatment was aimed at helping the patient overcome dependence and at the same time letting the patient be the active decision-maker. The stories about treatment showed how the therapist viewed treatment as an act of balancing between dependence and independence.