ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the claim that systemic ideas and practice can be influential in meeting the challenges and opportunities posed by care in the community. The partner with the drinking problem may have developed a primary attachment to alcohol. Relationships and relationship-maintaining skills may deteriorate because of the lengths to which the drinker will go to maintain a supply of alcohol. Systemic thinking and practice is part of a multi-modal approach to working with individuals and their families where long-standing patterns of drinking dominate family life. The intersection between patterns of drinking and patterns in family relationships over time provides a focus for the exploration of family culture, beliefs, and life-cycle transitions. Multi-systemic therapy was developed by Henggeler and colleagues in response to the need to work collaboratively and in partnership with families when adolescents present services and families with the challenge of serious clinical and legal problems.
