The family system therapy on different stages of rehabilitation process: experience of working in rehab center

Abstract

The article is devoted to the experience of psychotherapeutic work with the family of an adult suffering from chemical dependence in a rehabilitation clinic. The experience of psychotherapeutic work with families of chemically dependent patients of a non-governmental social rehabilitation center for persons with chemical dependence from September 2017 to December 2019 is analyzed. The patients were men and women with a chemical addiction: alcoholism or drug addiction. Most of them at the time of passage of the program are from 18 to 45 y.o. During this period, 29 families completed rehabilitation program and participated in systemic family therapy. The authors highlight a number of specific features of conducting systemic family psychotherapy as part of a rehabilitation program for addicts: low family motivation for psychotherapy, the need to build therapeutic work taking into account the logic of the rehabilitation process, its main stages and goals, specific challenges for maintaining therapeutic neutrality (need to communicate with patients beyond the therapeutic sessions and family desire to use therapist to maintain control over the patient). Features and objectives of therapy at different stages of rehabilitation are described and illustrated by a description of several therapeutic cases. The generalization of the practical experience of a systemic family therapist in rehabilitation can be considered as a first step towards the development and approbation of rehabilitation programs for addicted people, that include therapeutic work with the whole family of the patient in the logic of systemic family therapy.

Keywords

• systemic family psychotherapy
• chemical dependence
• rehabilitation of people suffering from chemical dependence