Curative factors in alcohol and drug treatment: behavioral and disease model perspectives

Unlike the general psychotherapy field which has been subjected to extensive process analysis, there are no systematic studies of treatment processes in the alcohol and drug treatment literature. As a necessary first step to study treatment process, the alcohol and drug literature was culled for references to treatment processes. Thirty-five separate processes were identified and were broadly categorized as either disease model, behavioral or general psychotherapy processes. A national survey of treatment expert's views on treatment processes was conducted to determine whether certain processes would be considered as most important in the treatment of alcohol or drug problems. Results of this survey indicate that experts tend to rate certain processes as most important in the resolution of alcohol and drug problems. Results suggest that it is possible to identify core disease model and behavioral treatment processes. These processes might be used to assess the relative effectiveness of each therapeutic approach. Finally, results indicated that while disease model and behavioral experts tended to differ strongly on their ratings of the importance of some processes, there seems to be a trend toward integrating behavioral processes into a traditional disease model framework. The use of these results in constructing an instrument to measure processes used in alcohol and drug treatment is discussed.