Systemic intervention in female family members of people with addictive substances abuse

Abstract

Introduction: drug abuse consequences affect the individual as a person but also their human relationships inside and outside of the family system. In accordance with systemic therapy, the individual in context and the context itself should be analyzed, because family’s life is organized around drug use and abuse. Usually women are the ones who tend to carry out and hold a pathological bond entitled codependency.

Objective: the current study sets out then a family therapy intervention with the aim to have a positive impact on women with codependent behavior and as a result, modify their family organization patterns.

Method: 10 group sessions were carried out under the structural and narrative family therapy perspective, with 16 women who presented codependency. Participants were assessed under a pre-post design with the codependency test (Noriega, 2011) and the family organization maps (Velasco & Sinibaldi, 2001).

Results: the systematic intervention results toss a statistically significant reduction in the four dimensions of codependency, as well as in the family organization changes, which address a greater functionality in it.

Discussion and conclusions: participants started with high codependency levels and dysfunctional parameters in their family organization, through the systemic group intervention they showed significant changes. With these tools, the participants were able to improve communication with other members and become aware of their place and role within their family system, which improved its functioning.