Groups in Addiction and Recovery: Signs of a Paradigm Shift

The four articles appearing in this volume of the Journal of Groups in Addiction & Recovery are each, in different ways, an essay in the application of theory to the problem of addiction. Theory underlies the presentation of observational evidence, intervention research, and systematic reviews of research in these four articles. The Kuhnian paradigm shift applies in the fields of social science as well as in the natural sciences. In the field of psychopathology, for instance, Freudian theories were supplanted by cognitive-behavioral theory by the 1970s and 1980s. However, Freudian theory did not thereby lose its significance; it is the basis for depth psychology, and contemporary understandings of mental illness would be impossible without it. Gatta and colleagues present research on an interventionmethod, which they call the focus group, in the prevention of alcohol abuse among Italian teenagers. They compare self-reported alcohol consumption among a group of teenagers randomly assigned to attend four focus-group sessions held weekly in school versus a control group who attended a brief informational session only. At baseline, a majority of teens in the sample, aged an average 15 years old, were reporting alcohol consumption, despite World Health Organization guidelines that state young people this age should abstain from alcohol. Gatta et al. found that the students who attended the focus groups reduced their alcohol consumption more at posttest than the control group. This study is significant in that the intervention is a relatively simple schoolbased activity. In this study, theory is implicit. As Gatta and colleagues demonstrate, group discussions are powerful vehicles for behavior change even when the exact mechanisms whereby the groups effect change are unexplored. The article by Bradshaw and colleagues is also an intervention study of a 1.5day program for alcoholics and their families. Bradshaw and colleagues measured family functioning and personal readiness to change before and after the intervention. Among other findings, they observed, somewhat paradoxically, that higher levels of family functioning prior to the intervention were negatively associated with personal readiness to change after the intervention. They present interesting speculations arising from this finding and directions for further research. This study, like the Gatta et al. study, is based on a group intervention, but for a very different population—families rather than unrelated high school students. The mechanisms of change in the intervention are again not specified in this article. In contrast to the first two studies, the article by Corrigan is a qualitative observational study of Al-Anon. Like the other 12-step movements that have arisen from Alcoholics Anonymous, Al-Anon is best understood as a social movement, rather than a professional therapy or intervention per se. Corrigan interviewed Al-Anon participants both in small groups (two groups of five and three individuals) as well as