Psychotherapy of cocaine addiction

the long version

The widely accepted disease model of addiction overlooks the fact that helping addicts to change their lives is fundamentally an interpersonal and societal act, because even the seemingly objective chemical effects of cocaine are inevitably integrated into a larger world of meanings and relationships. Addicts are demonized in our society, and the consequences of their social alienation profoundly affect not only them but also their therapists and the process of therapy as well. Mark and Faude describe an approach to treating cocaine addiction whose centerpiece is learning to develop "relationship episodes" with the patient - concrete narratives of actual events in the patient's life. Sharing generous clinical examples, they demonstrate how engagement in this mutual activity illuminates and transforms the subjective, interpersonal, and cultural experience of the cocaine user.