Clinical Guide to Alcohol Treatment. The Community Reinforcement Approach.

Abstract

The above is the first detailed text to implement the community reinforcement approach. It starts with the initial studies by Azrin and colleagues (1973), emphasizing at that time random controlled trials were rare in the treatment of alcoholism. The basis of the community reinforcement approach is ‘to utilise social recreational or familiar vocational reinforcers to aid clients in the recovery process’. Early studies showed positive results using this method compared with controls in alcoholics and the method was extended to cocaine and heroin users. A very wide range of reinforcers were used which in other programmes would be regarded as strategies; thus, for example in the community reinforcement approach with cocaine misusers, reinforcers …