The Efficacy of Brief Family Based Treatment in Changing Family Members' Attitudes Toward People with Addiction and Attitudes Toward a Relative with Addiction

Abstract

The family has been described as the center or heart of societal relationships with each family member playing an integral part in that relationship (Garret & Landau, 2007; Jay & Jay, 2000). Therefore, when a family member is affected by a disease such as addiction, his or her predicament typically impacts other members of the family. When this occurs, family members may seek therapy to provide solutions. One technique that has been found to be beneficial to the entire family by providing education about the addiction is brief family-based treatment (FBT) (Jay & Jay; Johnson, 1998). Brief family-based treatment, teaches, that as family members work together, they have a much better chance of changing their own perceptions/attitudes about addiction and thereby changing the outcome for the relative with addiction.