[The establishing of the therapeutic relationship with the alcoholic (author's transl)]

Due to his relationship to alcohol which has cut off all other relationship, the alcoholic patient is left alone with a double image of himself: the image of what he has become and the one of what he has been or could have been. The therapist is therefore ill - at - ease in front of this splitting, with varied reactions influenced by his own personality, by the patient's personality and by what alcohol means to both of them. Several attitudes may result from this relational difficulty: rejection and possible referral to a "specialist", symptomatic treatment or rigid, ethical, defensive attitudes. The approach to be alcoholic should pass through acceptance of his relationship to alcohol and the privileged place it occupies in his life so as to enable him to have access to another relationship with some one who restitutes him his human dignity.