ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with an analysis of traditional treatment process in which it will be argued that the problems of lack of motivation, denial and resistance are not resolved by focusing treatment mainly around enhancing willpower among problem drinkers. It describes some of the cognitive-behavioural strategies and reviews some of the evidence available for their effectiveness. Besides the scarcity of supporting empirical evidence about treatment process, there is the problem of defining traditional treatment. That traditional alcoholism treatment is likely to have elements in common with psychotherapy as a whole is self-evident. A motivational problem and source of ambivalence among alcoholics concerns their expectations about actually achieving the goal of treatment, or in Bandura’s terms, developing a feeling of self-efficacy about their ability to achieve this goal.
