Multiple Family Therapy with Drug Abusers

Abstract

Multiple Family Therapy (MFT) is a technique which is particularly useful and applicable with drug abusers and their families. This type of therapy can be used in any treatment setting for drug abusers, but is most successful in residential settings where the family is more available and accessible. MFT was initiated as a modality by Lacqueur (1971) in an inpatient unit of a state hospital, but, as used by the authors, has many other roots. These include: Social Network Intervention (Speck, 1971), multiple impact therapy (Ritchie, 1971), the ward or town meeting concept of both the psychiatric and Synanon mode therapeutic community and a host of group and family therapy techniques. Group techniques run the gamut from psychoanalytic through psychodrama, existential, gestalt and encounter. Family techniques include sculpting or choreography (Papp, 1971), structural communications (Minuchin, 1974), and systems approaches (Fogarty, 1974).