Introduction to the Special Issue on Group Therapy and Substance Abuse

This special issue focuses on the group therapy of substance abuse/addiction. The use of group therapy for the treatment of substance abusers is a method whose time has come. Over the past 10–15 years, a variety of kinds of group approaches has increasingly come into use for this purpose in a wide variety of settings. Indeed, most specialists in the treatment of these often difficult-to-treat patients would agree that for most such patients, group treatment is the treatment of choice. Substance abuse/addiction, as distinct from substance use, is a chronic relapsing disease of the brain with psychosocial, behavioral, and societal antecedents and consequences (Leshner, 1997). As more has been learned about the neurobiology of the substance use disorders, and there is an increased understanding of the psychosocial factors involved in the etiology and epidemiology of these disorders, there also has been an enhanced understanding of the most effective methods of treatment. Although people use and abuse psychoactive substances of abuse to either feel good or feel better, it has become clear that engaging in substance abuse (the phenotypical behavior) is the result of interactions among genetic predispositions (the genotype), certain psychosocial environmental risk factors, and the psychopharmacological effects of the substances themselves. To avoid the adverse pathophysiological effects of drugs on the brain and their adverse effects on behavior at individual, familial, and societal levels, effective prevention and treatment interventions are necessary. Because the development of substance-abusing behavior takes place in a variety of groups (family, school, peer groups, and the like), it is appropriate to look to the use of groups in treatment set-