Multifamily Therapy In Substance Abuse Treatment With Women

A major concern of many substance abuse treatment facilities is that female clients have greater dropout rates than male clients. In the case of the treatment facility that served as the basis for this study, the average length of stay for female clients was a week shorter than for male clients. It was hypothesized that weekly multifamily therapy sessions would increase the length of stay for women in the program. This article describes the establishment of a multifamily therapy program within a substance abuse treatment facility for adults. In addition, it provides the results of a study in which the effectiveness of multifamily therapy was assessed with regard to women in treatment. The study indicates that multifamily therapy can increase the length of stay for female substance abuse clients. The article describes the process of developing the multifamily therapy program and discusses how it affects women in treatment.