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Chemical dependency plays a significant role in a majority of family problems. This article details an intervention for the family with a chemically dependent adult. Since families frequently resist therapy, strategies are detailed that have been successful in engaging them in the therapeutic process and moving toward constructive changes in their relationships with each other as well as in each individual member's functioning.Many researchers and practitioners now recognize the impact of chemical abuse on those close to the abuser. Although Alcoholics Anonymous noted this phenomena more than fifty years ago, it was not until the 1960s that professionals in treatment for alcoholism began to consider the families of alcoholics. Vernon Johnson (1973, 1986), one of the family treatment pioneers in Minnesota, began to deal with families out of a growing sense of frustration with individuals who completed inpatient treatment for alcoholism but could not seem to maintain their sobriety once they returned home. Hazelden (a private treatment center for chemical dependency in Minnesota) hired a social worker in 1966 to develop formalized programming for families. St. Mary's Hospital in Minneapolis, as part of their inpatient alcoholism treatment program, began insisting that family members come into treatment. Family focus, however, was by no means a universal movement among other chemical-dependency treatment pro-

Uncertainty concerning therapeutic targets has probably retarded the development of cognition-enhancing drugs. While enhancement of normal cognitive function may be a legitimate goal it is unlikely that drugs developed without a clear clinical indication will ever be approved by regulatory authorities. Normal aging as a target would also appear to be excluded. The main debate is whether drugs should be developed for specific disease states (e.g., Alzheimer's), particular syndromes (e.g., AAMI) or for treating symptoms (e.g., memory deficits). Although targeting disease states appears the least problematic, it would be difficult to include many potentially treatable patients in such studies. In this respect, the status of AAMI is still the subject of much debate. In any case, it is important that trial populations be as homogeneous as possible, with clear diagnostic criteria (e.g., defined memory impairment, Hachinski score, CT scans) and that patients be moderately to severely affected.

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