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I have previously emphasised the primary importance of treatment and treatment professionals: to facilitate the person’s natural healing processes to help them find personal recovery.
I recently found an excellent description of what is required of professionals working in the field in The Alcoholic Family in Recovery: A Developmental Model by Stephanie Brown and Virginia Lewis.
“It is absolutely vital for therapists to know what is normal over time in the process of recovery or they may inadvertently try to treat, stop, or fix what is normal and necessary for growth.
It is the therapist’s job to stay out of the way of the natural healing process, to monitor progress, and to recognize past or current roadblocks that might interfere with people’s ability to remain abstinent and engaged in recovery.
It is also the therapist’s job to know the path, anticipate the seemingly unresolvable conflicts families will face, and to help them cope with these challenges in ways that will minimize secondary trauma.
The complicated task for the therapist is to constantly assess what is part of growth – for this person and this family – and what is a sign of difficulty that requires intervention. The individuals and the family hopefully are doing the same.
It is the therapist’s task to listen, interpret, advise, educate, and coach all along the way. It is not the therapist’s job to dictate what change should be.
For example, the therapist is not approaching the family with a goal of helping people express their feelings more or less, based on the therapist’s idea of what constitutes good therapy.
The therapist instead wonders how the expression of feeling at this point in time, in this particular family, will facilitate or inhibit the developmental process of recovery.”
Excellent stuff!
[NB. Of course, whereas the authors have talked about the family, this also refers to the individual person accessing treatment].
Your last thought is interesting in itself. Is there such a thing as an individual person accessing treatment? We have seen so much on the site about the ripple effect of addiction on those who care for and support the addict.
Perhaps part of the problem with our services is that they don’t involve the family/friends enough.
Pucker blog, Question? With regards to therapist – are counsellors in this agenda? Reason I ask is that there is a huge difference between the two – and very few qualified therapists yet loads and loads of counsellors.
hello David,
are you ever in the uk ?
to get a feel for stuff at the community level..?
must say i do envy you traveling the world reading books posting blogs …. nice recovery mate can i have a bit of it !
Hi Verve,
Been away a year now, was back three times last year (running around various communities) and intend being back May and Sep (for March). I talk with UK people daily – those jungle drums rumble even across oceans.
Wish I could be in more contact, but sometimes it’s very good to look in from the outside. It’s also allowed me to pull back from things in the UK as well (which helps a lot sometimes), but other times it’s as if I’m in the middle of things. Exploring what is happening here.
Sounds a nice life (although I don’t travel a lot now) and Perth is lovely, but it has not all been rosy. Very busy and somewhat stressing (at times) in last year. So I’m not sure if you want my life.
Anyway, Michaela joining up has been a godsend and we spend a lot of time in contact. I enjoying your writings and look forward to meeting you in May.
Martin,
Therapists is very much an American term. Here, I would be describing any professional, or someone being paid, or a volunteer, who is helping someone with their substance use and related problems.
Sorry Martin, doing two things at once. What do you define as difference between therapist and counsellor. As I say in America it is a general term, I think.
Dave – Many thanks for replying, only until recently have I actually had a therapist among many other qualifications. I have always had a councilor yet never questioned or knew the differance unil recently.
Councilor I thought was there to listen – not be judgemantal – not suggest anything and just let you of load.
Therapist was there to allow you in your own time work on yourself within.
I hope that makes sense? the work I am doing now with my therapist is Pucker utter hard work, it get worse before it becomes better.
The “UNDERLYING ISSUES OF SHAME AND GUILT” Councilors have never approached me in this way in any way or form.
It feels to myself this is Quality and not Quanity Service,
