Alex Georges Copello
Clinical Director
Professor Alex Copello trained in Psychology in London, Clinical Psychology at the University of Surrey and later obtained his PhD from the University of Birmingham. He is a Consultant Clinical Psychologist, formerly clinical director of the Birmingham and Solihull NHS Foundation Trust substance misuse services and currently the Director for the Trust Applied Addiction Research and Development Programme and Professor of Addiction Research at The School of Psychology, University of Birmingham. His career has combined clinical and academic work in the addiction field. His research and clinical interests include the study of the impact of addiction upon families as well as the development and evaluation of family and social network based interventions. He has been a member of the executive council of the Society for the Study of Addiction and is currently the chair of the New Directions in the Study of Alcohol Group in the UK. Alex publishes regularly in a number of scientific journals and has co-authored/edited the following books: Living with Drink: Women Who Live with Problem Drinkers(1998); Substance Misuse in Psychosis: Approaches to Treatment and Service Delivery (2002) [Awarded a High Commendation in the 2003 BMA Book competition]; Cognitive Behavioural Integrated Treatment (2004) and Coping with Alcohol and Drug Problems(2005).
Social Behaviour and Network Therapy in the UK Alcohol Treatment Trial: basic principles and early experiences
The present paper reports on the basic principles of a treatment approach that is currently being used in a National Randomised Controlled Trial of Alcohol Treatments in the UK (UKATT). The treatment: Social Behaviour and Network Therapy (SBNT) is novel as a package but developed by integrating a number of strategies that have been found to be effective in other approaches. The treatment is based on the notion that to give the best chance of a good outcome people with serious drinking problems need to develop positive social support for change. An outline of the basic principles that guided the development of SBNT will be followed by process data from the first 40 cases. Three case studies illustrating three common scenarios therapists find when applying SBNT will be described.