Psychosocial Interventions

Psychosocial Treatments for Alcohol Dependence Syndrome

A variety of psychosocial treatments have been used in the treatment of alcohol use disorders along with pharmacological treatment and their efficacy has also been reviewed (Miller & Wilbourne 2002; Holder et al., 1991, McKay & Maisto 1993). The most widely used empirically supported psychosocial approaches are brief interventions, motivational interviewing and cognitive behaviour therapy (CBT), including coping skills training, relapse prevention and behavioural couple’s therapy (Miller and Wilbourne, 2002; Carroll and Onken, 2005). In this section we explore the various interventions available for persons with AUDs.

Brief interventions
Brief interventions are the first level of treatment

It helps them to make positive behavioral and psychological changes when combined with other standard psychosocial interventions (Rohsenow et al., 2001). They last one to four sessions and are aimed at maximizing the patient’s intrinsic desire to change or enhancing a patient’s adherence to more intensive or extended treatment. Motivational approaches have been found to be efficacious (Dunn et al. 2001; Miller and Wilbourne 2002; Project MATCH Research Group 1993, 1997, 1998). At least 32 trials show that it effectively improves treatment adherence and drinking outcomes (Hettema et al., 2005) as well as in reducing hazardous alcohol consumption (Vasilaki et al., 2006; Smedslund et al.,

Coping skills training is based on the premise that drinking has become a way of coping with interpersonal stress (Monti et al., 1994). Skills training provide alternative strategies to cope with social skills deficits and teach clients to deal with interpersonal stress without drinking excessively. Examples of social skills training include communication skills, listening techniques, assertiveness, problem solving, drink refusal skills, coping with urges to drink, relaxation, anger management and stress management skills training. A number of earlier reviews have stated that there is consistent evidence that coping skills training is effective in reducing alcohol consumption among alcohol dependent people (Shand et al. 2003; Raistick et al.