[영문]Treatment processes, what is being done and why it is being done in treatment arrangements, is a field of substance abuse study in which relatively little research has been done. There are several methodological problems. The method used in this study of care providers’ perspectives in Swedish LVM-institutions (institutions for the coercive care of substance abusers) is the focus group. In order to get a comprehensive approach, a strategic selection of four institutions was made, based on the institutions’ therapeutic or pedagogical viewpoint. The analyses reveal that it is impossible to discern an explicit description of what constitutes motivational work at any of the LVM institutions, that the providers at the four LVM institutions gave completely different pictures of coercive care and that they used different tools to accomplish their central task ? to motivate the clients. At three of the institutions the clients’ abuse problems were only mentioned in passing in their treatment, and the staff spoke of the clients’ resistance and negative attitudes against the coercion as obstacles they had to negotiate in order to continue the motivation work. The most radical strategy was to work as though the coercion did not exist.