Coping Strategies for the Stages of Family Recovery

This paper introduces and briefly discusses the concept of family recovery and the research that identified the four stages of recovery. The main focus, however, is to discuss the role of the therapist in treating families in recovery; including working with children; and to identify and discuss the different requirements, tasks, and treatment strategies associated with each stage. Therapists can play a vital role in two main ways when working with alcoholic families: (1) to assist the family in entering into the recovery process and (2) to help themmaintain recovery. To do this effectively, therapists must first understand the characteristics of family recovery-it is only then that can they provide coping strategies for the recovering alcoholic, co-alcoholic, and children. For example, the therapist begins with a concrete, active, practical approach (transition and early recovery stages) and moves into a more psychodynamic, interactive, approach (ongoing recovery stage) as exemplified in the coping strategies and ideas presented in the paper. However, it is important to remember that recovery is a process that does not have demarcations for the beginning and ending of each stage. Rather, recovery is fluid with an ebb and flow of individual and family dynamics and interactions. (C) 2007 by The Haworth Press, Inc. All rights reserved.