Working with the problem drinker

"A detailed program for psychotherapists-the solution-focused, brief-therapy, problem-solving method of working with problem-drinker clients. At a time when the accepted standard treatment for alcoholism is long-term and expensive, solution-focused therapy, as developed at the Brief Family Therapy Center in Milwaukee, offers a brief and cost-effective alternative. Insoo Kim Berg and Scott D. Miller believe that a focus on solutions, rather than pathology, is the most constructive strategy for working with problem drinkers; their foremost concern is with what works. To this end they don't reject traditional treatment programs; rather, they view them as one part of a flexible and multidimensional approach to alcohol abuse treatment. The authors successfully utilize solution-focused therapy in their work with problem drinkers, but it is their philosophy of working with clients-and within clients' belief systems-to encourage change that is at the heart of their model. The model, grounded in the philosophy of solution-focused brief therapy, introduces a paradigmatic change in the approach to substance abuse treatment. Rather than treating a problem drinker, Berg and Miller work with cli