PROBLEM DRINKING: 

a person-centred dialogue

Richard Bryant-Jefferies

ISBN 1 85775 929 X

Counsellors, psychotherapists and other health and social care professionals are frequently faced with clients who have developed a problematic relationship with alcohol. The counsellor working in primary care, the nurse in a busy Accident and Emergency Department, the social worker concerned with a family, the housing support worker, they can all expect to encounter people with alcohol problems. There is a growing need for a wider understanding of the issues to be addressed and ways of working with this client group.

This book provides a fresh realism in understanding the world of alcohol counselling. It uses fictitious dialogue as a method to enable the reader to appreciate the nature of counselling a person with an alcohol problem through the application of person-centred counselling theory. It provides deep insights into what goes on in counselling sessions, into the counselling relationship and how this links into the counsellor's own supervision. It is essential reading for all counselling trainers, supervisors and trainees, and for novice and experienced counsellors. It also provides useful approaches and frameworks for other caring professions, and many valuable insights for clients themselves.

"This is the first book to offer a meticulously detailed exploration of a complete therapeutic process with a problem drinker. The intention of Radcliffe's new Living Therapy series is to enable the reader to enter imaginatively into therapeutic processes and thereby to acquire an experiential knowledge that can seldom be obtained through the more conventional text-book. This book succeeds impressively in this aim and should have a ready readership among not only person-cntred trainers and trainees but also among therapists and professionals of other orientations. Those who themselves experience difficulties with alcohol may use it either as an adjunct to therapy or as a client self-help manual. This book deserves to be widely read."

Professor Brian Thorne, Emeritus Professor of Counselling, University of East Anglia and Co-founder of The Norwich Centre, in his Foreword

"This book is full of useful information for those working with alcohol problems, on when and how to discuss drinking patterns and on how to convey information on alcohol and its effects."

Alistair Sutherland, Director, Drug and Alcohol Services, South Staffordshire Healthcare NHS Trust, in his Foreword

"This tremendous contribution to professionals working in the addiction field is bound to have an effect in decreasing the stigma towards individuals with alcohol problems by the examples and problems so well described by the author in this book. A 'must read' for all professionals counselling persons with alcohol problems!"

Dana Murphy Parker, Professor of Nursing, Arizona Western College USA and Chair of the Education Committee for the International Nurses Society on Addictions

CONTENTS: Introduction * Session 1: Wednesday morning, 11 October * Supervision 1: Thursday afternoon, 12 October * Session 2: Wednesday morning, 18 October * Session 3: Wednesday morning, 25 October * Session 4: Wednesday morning, 1 November * Supervision 2: Friday afternoon, 3 November * Session 5: Wednesday morning, 8 November * Session 6: Wednesday morning, 15 November * Session 7: Wednesday morning, 2 November * Supervision 3: Friday afternoon, 24 November * Session 8: Wednesday morning, 29 November * Session 9: Wednesday morning, 6 December * Session 10: Wednesday morning, 20 December * Supervision 4: Friday afternoon, 22 December * Session 11: Wednesday morning, 3 January * Session 12: Wednesday morning, 17 January * Final reflection * Reference * Further Reading * Useful Organisations * Index

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