The Concerned Other : How to Change Problematic Drug and Alcohol Users Through Their Family Members: A Complete Manual

The mother wracked with anxiety for her once loving son who is now transformed beyond recognition; the silent father who cannot articulate his fear or despair for a lost daughter; husbands and wives struggling to reconcile the destruction reaped upon them by the person they vowed to spend their life with - the concerned other is desperate for change in the user, but often ends up feeling helpless and frustrated - let down by his or her own inability to help and by a lack of professional support.

Professional helpers, on the other hand, may find that their training, geared to the individualistic theories that require the user to make the change, find they are unable to employ effectively the concerned other and his or her willingness to help.

In this book, Phil Harris sees the concerned other as the person most able to effect change in the user's life.

He presents a thoroughly researched and carefully argued theoretical underpinning of his work, and offers practitioners a clear and comprehensive, intervention-based programme to help the concerned other bring about the change that he or she most wants to see. For drug and alcohol workers, youth workers, criminal justice workers, social workers, housing officers, family workers, counsellors, families, "The Concerned Other" provides a complete treatment manual for working with those affected by a family member's drug and alcohol use.

It explores the extensive research that demonstrates why and how families can effect change and offers comprehensive assessment and outcomes tools.

It provides a complete worksheet-based programme that will help the 'concerned other': get their loved ones into treatment; reduce the stress and pressure they are under; improve the quality of their own life; and, support their loved one in treatment.

This book will help practitioners support the concerned others in effecting change in the user, and will increase the provision of high quality and effective services they can offer to those who suffer intolerably from those that they also love the most.

The 68 pages of copiable material to be found in this manual are also available as a free PDF to customers who subsequently register their purchase with RHP.