Conducting psychoeducational interventions with drug abusing clients: the lifestyle model.

A psychoeducational model of intervention is proposed for use with drug abusing clients. This model may be particularly helpful during the early stages of intervention in reducing resistance to change because it addresses the eight thinking styles (mollification, cutoff, entitlement, power orientation, sentimentality, superoptimism, cognitive indolence, discontinuity) believed to shield the drug "lifestyle" from forces that would otherwise bring about change. Practical suggestions are offered as to how this information might be shared with clients.