THERAPISTS RECOMMENDATIONS OF ABSTINENCE OR CONTROLLED DRINKING AS TREATMENT GOALS - SIGNIFICANCE OF ALCOHOLICS SEX, SOCIAL-CLASS AND PRETREATMENT DRINKING BEHAVIOR

To examine the effects of alcoholics'' sex, social class and pretreatment drinking behavior on therapists'' treatment recommendations, 62 therapists (24 women) from 22 alcoholism treatment centers in Indiana, USA read case histories of 18 men and women alcoholics who varied in social class (low, middle, high) and controlled drinking prior to treatment (little, some, much). Therapists recommended treatment goals for each case by using a 7-point scale ranging from strongly recommend abstinence to strongly recommend controlled drinking. Analysis of variance indicated that controlled drinking was more strongly recommended to alcoholics of high social class (P < .001) and to alcoholics having a more extensive history of controlled drinking (P < .001). The alcoholics'' sex interacted with their socal class and history of controlled drinking (P < .001), recommedations of controlled drinking for women being based primarily on social class whereas those for men reflected their pretreatment drinking behavior. In the absence of empirical evidence establishing drinking history and social class as differentially predictive of treament outcome in men and women, respectively, the role of therapists'' values in the selection of treament goals appears to be evident.