| Abstrakt: |
• Should we choose to adopt the standpoint of family systems therapists, which describes alcoholism as a behavioral disease affecting family relationships, then it is safe to claim that alcoholism is a symptom of a dysfunctional family's pathological environment in which its members cannot satisfy their basic biological, psychological and social needs. • Contemporary therapeutic approach to alcoholism asks for a complete and systematic treatment of patients, including alterations in behavioral patterns and all relating interactive relationships. Furthermore, it also demands that changes are made in the system of values and life objectives, bearing in mind the importance of altering one's attitude towards their social environment. • The most difficult goal to achieve in this process is probably the necessary change concerning closeness and mutual respect between the spouses. Therefore, if we assume that within one alcoholic's family system both partners seek satisfaction of their own needs and, consequently, strive to create and maintain a relationship based on mutual dependance and trust, then the therapeutic process of improving both personal and marital relationship must result in the creation of a functional marriage and acceptance of both spousal and individual responsibilities. • Taking into account basic requirements of the systematic approach in the therapy of alcoholism, we have chosen to investigate the findings of a standard therapeutic procedure of monitoring old and new behaviour patterns of patients and their associates, which are commonly recognized as solid change indicators of the entire system. • This case study has been carded out in cooperation with the families of alcoholics being treated in the Consultancy Ward for Addictive Diseases operating within the Department of Psychiatry in the Health Centre Valjevo. -- Specimen: 20 families that have completed or are currently undergoing the program for treating alcoholism in the period between 2005 and 2007. -- Method: Analysis of standard therapeutic procedures concerning old and new behavioral patterns in the period of 6 months since the beginning of therapy. -- Main objective: Contrastive comparison of different levels of change in patients' and their associates' behaviour and synchronization of their pacing. Conclusion: If the therapy of alcoholic marriages is understood as the process of creating one's I with both spouses, coinciding with the proces of creating their mutual WE (according to professor T. Sedmak, PhD), then it is safe to conclude that the developmental changes of WE were significantly larger and faster than those occuring in the developmental process of I. Possible causes for such a conclusion can be found in: -- prolonged periods of time in which both participants (patients and their associates) had to maintain assuming their pathological roles, which further resulted in creating and maintaining a dysfunctional family system. -- the priority list of therapeutic objectives aiming predominantly at changing the entire system, followed by the process of personal transformation. In addition, this case study endeavours to come up with therapeutic assignments in order to bridge »gaps« occurring in the therapeutic process. It also strives to synchronize the pace of transformation of patients and their associates and change the order of therapeutic assignments so that the planning of the treatment program carried out in the course of phase 1 of the one-year treatment is more efficient. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] |
