MayoClinic.com Feature Focuses on How to Help Loved Ones Seek Help for Addiction, Mental Health

Thursday, November 15, 2007

ROCHESTER, Minn. — An intervention is an organized, planned process in which family and friends, and sometimes colleagues and clergy or faith leaders, join together in a meeting to compassionately confront a loved one in an effort to encourage him or her to seek treatment for alcoholism, addiction or a mental health problem.

A new feature on MayoClinic.com offers insights regarding how to prepare for an intervention. The article provides helpful insights into how an intervention works, who might benefit from one, and how to plan and hold one for a family member or friend.

An intervention can help people who struggle with a variety of addictive behaviors and mental health conditions. Some indications that a person may benefit from an intervention include:

• Health problems because of the addiction or other disorder
• Harmful or threatening behavior to family, friends or strangers
• Child neglect or abuse
• Job loss
• Financial problems
• Homelessness
• Risk of suicide or self-harm
• Driving under the influence
• Loss or alienation of friends
• Legal problems or criminal activity
• Previous unsuccessful attempts at treatment

Although the intervention may come as a surprise, it isn't meant to be an ambush. Rather, family and friends supply specific examples of the effects of harmful behaviors, offer a prearranged treatment option and share the consequences of refusing treatment.

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