PROBLEM
ID) have shown an association between social class factors and stay in psychiatric outpatient treatment. Although setting, method, and measures vary from study to study, there is a remarkably consistent finding that lower and lower-middle class patients drop out of treatment sooner or stay in psychotherapy for shorter periods than middle and upper-middle class patients. This finding has been reported for general psychiatric outpatient settings that offer some form of psychoanalytically-oriented individual or group psychotherapy. Studies of dropout rates among alcoholics, on the other hand, have not focused on social class as a variable, but have demonstrated that dropout rates for alcoholics are on the whole higher than for general psychiatric
Zax, Marsey and Biggs(") examined length of stay in treatment among alcoholics in relation to several demographic variables, and although they did not focus on social class pm se, they report no relationship between education or occupation and length of stay in treatment.
The study reported here, part of a project") evaluating the establishment of treatment relations with alcoholics via a team approach based on psychodynamic understanding, investigates social class in relation to the establishment or nonestablishment of treatment relations among alcoholics.