You may have seen interventions take place on the TV show Intervention, which popularized the broad awareness of this therapy method. These interventions bring together a struggling individual’s social peers and family for an intensive group therapy session in which only one person is the focus of the therapy instead of the entire group like in typical group therapy. But we all know TV can be misleading. So the question remains, do interventions really work? 

While interventions can and do help people get into treatment, they can also undermine relationships, potentially making an addict worse. Whether an intervention is right for your loved one depends on a variety of factors, and there’s no way to predict with 100 percent accuracy what will unfold at an intervention.

In a study back in the early 2000s to determine the effectiveness of interventions, the results of extensive research reviewed very tentatively suggest that support provided by friends and/or family members and by peers is actually beneficial and that social support skills training may be especially useful. 

These findings hold across both individual and group interventions and for peer-and professionally-directed protocols. A large variety of existing different treatment protocols and areas of application were located, but there was insufficient data to differentiate which interventions work best for any specific problems. It was noted that interventions that emphasized reciprocal support (e.g. both giving and receiving support) demonstrated more encouraging results, suggesting that merely receiving support may not be as potent as mutual exchanges of support. There were few comparisons of different forms of social support interventions.

In conclusion, interventions can be effective. It all comes down to the quality of support and understanding that the person receives. 

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