Intervention Options

Interventions are a technique often used as a last-ditch effort to help someone who has an addiction or similar problem that is taking over their life. While many think of interventions as a method for helping drug or alcohol addicts, they are used for other destructive behavior as well. Picking out the right method of intervention is largely dependent on the attitude and temperament of the person who needs help.

Reasons

• Interventions can be held for just about anything that you and others feel is affecting a loved one or acquaintance negatively. In many cases, interventions are held in cases of drug or alcohol abuse. If a person is neglecting her health in any other manner, this may also require an intervention. People who treat others poorly, slack in their responsibilities or have seriously bad financial tendencies may also need an intervention.

Cause and Effect Intervention

• One intervention method is to gather friends and family and talk to the afflicted person candidly about how his behavior has negatively affected those around him. Be honest and open about how the person's problems extend far beyond just his own life. This can be done with or without a professional mediator.

Career Intervention

• Career interventions take place in regards to one's performance at work, though they may not always just include coworkers. Family, friends and coworkers may all attend to show the person that her performance at work has been getting consistently worse. The key is to stress how much you know the person is capable of and that it can still all be turned around.

Clinical Intervention

• Clinical interventions are ones in which rehabilitation, hospitalization or institutionalization are considered necessary. Problems have gone beyond anything that small changes in mindset can fix. In some cases, the person may have already landed in one of these institutions as a result of his destructive behavior and you must try to convince him to stay for a while to get better.

Consequence Intervention

• Another style of intervention is to tell the person how their behavior will affect him in the long run. While this may seem obvious, many people need to hear from the mouths of others what the worst-case scenarios are, given their destructive tendencies.

Harsh Intervention

• Holding a harsh intervention does not work for everyone, though some people need to be told bluntly that they are making terrible mistakes in their lives. Refrain from simple name calling, but let the person know how horrible his actions have been and that it is foolish to waste his life.