Conjoint Behavioral Treatment of an Alcoholic and His Spouse

Abstract

The role of the spouse in the treatment of alcohol abuse and alcoholism has been a controversial one. Early models, based on psychodynamic conceptualizations of alcoholic marriages, suggested that spouses of alcoholics were conflicted, needy, neurotic people, who needed intensive individual treatment in order to resolve their own neurotic conflicts (e.g., Price, 1945). Later, sociologically oriented theories suggested that wives of alcoholics were coping with an acute stress. Organizations such as Al-Anon were seen as an excellent modality to provide supportive intervention (e.g., Jackson, 1954). In the 1970s, general systems therapists and behavior therapists both suggested that alcohol problems and marital discord were integrally related, and that modifications of the marital system were perhaps necessary to effect change in an alcoholic’s drinking behavior (e.g., Miller, 1976; Ward & Faillace, 1970).