ABSTRACT
In the light of the foregoing chapters, summarised in Chapter 9, we turn in the present chapter to review the ways in which we and others have tried to help family members. We have drawn attention to the ways in the past that family members of relatives with substance misuse problems have often been alienated and disempowered by the approaches that professionals have taken toward them. They have usually either been excluded entirely from any interventions oriented toward the substance misusers, or viewed explicitly or implicitly in stereotyped and unsympathetic ways, even to the point of being demonised as the cause or maintainer of the substance misuse problems. Family members themselves have often expressed the view that professionals who could have been supportive were seen not to have been so. Dorn et al. (1987) cited several examples, including a parent who said, ‘I went to my doctor and I might as well have talked to the wall really, he really did not want to know … made me feel that small’ (p. 27). In Chapter 7, we gave some similar examples from the present study: as an English father put it, ‘no one seems to be able to advise you’. Although in all three socio-cultural groups there were examples of family members reporting positively about their contacts with professionals and those in authority, the picture was very mixed. We conclude that this is a consequence of the lack of a family orientation in professional training and practice, in addition to the existence of a number of models of family functioning that cast family members in a negative light. Those who might be in a position to help have therefore frequently lacked the kind of understanding of the position of family members that is gained only by listening closely and patiently to what family members have to say about their experiences.
