[Reframing, a type of paradoxical intervention in alcoholics (author's transl)]

In their interviews with alcoholics, the authors apply a so-called "reframing", i.e. a voluntary and positive redefinition of the "pathological" behavior described by the patient. This paradoxical intervention allows a change in self-concept which makes possible the progression of a therapeutic process that would have been compromised by the "symmetrical opposition" described by Bateson as characterizing the alcoholic's relationship to his environment. Through reframing, the therapist does not oppose his patient but gives a new meaning to his experience, hence avoiding symmetrical opposition. The analysis of interviews with an alcoholic patient hospitalized at the Ruyff Psychiatric Hospital (Henri-Chapelle) illustrate the increasing opposition in the patient-therapist relationship despite a classical attitude of benevolence, contrasting with the positive modification of the patient's attitude due to the reframing process.