Patient-centeredness in healthcare provision is paramount, and I was able to understand the film in this light as I saw both Alice and Michael as victims in distinct ways. They did not acknowledge the problem as affecting the two of them. Instead, it was falsely perceived that Alice only had the problem and underwent the treatment process alone. Even after that, Michael was not involved; yet this was a pertinent underlying factor that caused subsequent problems.
Therapeutic communications exist between Alice and the nurse at the rehabilitation center and Alice and Gray, the friend she met at the rehabilitation center. The nurse at the center listens and shows that she wants to be involved in Alice’s recovery. She sat down next to Alice and prompted her to reflect on herself and whatever she was going through by asking her about the problems and telling her that she could overcome them all. The nurse acknowledges that Alice has a problem that has to be solved. The care provider does not create a false reassuring claim that everything would be fine, which is typical of non-therapeutic communication, as seen in Michael, Alice’s husband. He presents the non-therapeutic behavior by trying to fix everything without attempting to understand the problem.
The film shows what usually happens in a home setting, though in other cases, the relationship in a couple is strained, resulting in worse outcomes than shown in the movie. Unfortunately, families living with an individual struggling with an addiction do not know how to handle or relate to the person. As a professional nurse, I believe in promoting family therapy early enough to help the family member(s). Despite visiting a counselor to improve their relationship, the therapeutic modes of communication between Alice and Michael impeded attempts to solve the problem in their marriage.
The case in the film is a typical representation of a situation when a man loves a woman, which is not the same in every family. Thereby, families need to understand how they should relate to an individual having a problem by adopting the right therapeutic techniques. My focus is to help such families by promoting good health. I can use leaflets to highlight the signs of addiction and the essence of the right therapeutic strategies while encouraging families to seek therapy. As a victim undergoes treatment to stop the addiction, the family needs help in adopting new living strategies to avoid creating the same trigger factors which will result in a relapse of the problem.