The Social Worker's Role in Handling the Resistances of the Alcoholic

Abstract

In handling the alcoholic's resistances to treatment, the social worker must be aware that the patient has suffered years of rejec tion by his family and his community. In addition, the therapist must develop an understanding and accepting attitude by which he can maintain some kind of rapport with his client. He must learn how to respond to his patient's immediate needs and how to handle his patient's as well as his own hostilities in order to avoid being identified with the authoritarian, punitive figures of the patient's traumatic past. Through the social worker's use of various techniques, the client can be made aware that his desire to be sober stems from his own inner motivations and is his own freedom of choice. The breaking down of an alcoholic's resistances is essentially an individualized process, in which the worker gears his treatment to the dynamics of the particular case.