Response: Families, Models, Relationships

Margaret McMahon: I have worked as a family therapist and always believed the patient gets better faster if the family is involved. It’s been disappointing to me that, in the outpatient addiction program where I work now, families just don’t participate. They are offered the opportunity to come to a family counseling session once a week free of charge, but very rarely do we have family members attend on a regular basis. It seems that patients don’t want to face their families, perhaps because they begin to understand the harm their disease has caused. And the families have gotten so entangled, they may feel animosity toward the patient.