-
Helping the Most Vulnerable Among Vulnerable Populations
Our client, LM felt guilty when she wasn’t able to make it to her weekly counseling session. She felt like the therapist she was working with became disappointed with her and that added guilt made her not motivated to go to the next counseling session as well. The therapist wasn’t necessarily...
-
System Transformation in Substance Use Disorder Care: New York State Progress and Priorities
The Surgeon General’s Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health (https://addiction.surgeongeneral.gov), issued in November 2016, is a landmark report for the substance use disorder (SUD) care system. This report makes clear the importance of identifying and treating substance use disorders and places...
-
Supervision: Paying Attention to the Soul, Not the Technique
Although I’ve never been a psychoanalyst, I did spend a year in analysis and took classes at the Columbia Psychoanalytic Institute. I left at the end of a year because being in practice at that time I came to realize that my own style of work was much more realistic, confrontational and time...
-
An Integrated Model of Care and Education: Wellspring and the Arch Bridge School
Residential Treatment” has been under assault for some time, as you may know. Critics have made claims about its shortcomings, many of which are absolutely true. But residential treatment is not just one model. There have been several models available to families that have been successful, time...
-
Intensive Outpatient Programs: When More is Better
The world of substance abuse treatment has gone through a great deal of change in the last decade. In the past, when a person entered substance abuse treatment, there was an immediate assumption that they needed a 28-inpatient rehab in order to “recover”. However, this standard has been changed...
-
Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery in Substance Use and Mental Illness
With the changes brought about by the growth of managed care, evidence-based practice and the advent of the Affordable Care Act, we increasingly recognize that substance use disorder and mental illness are behavioral health issues often found together in the same patient. The field of behavioral...
-
We Don’t Treat Brains, We Treat People
The US government estimates there are 80,000,000 Americans with diagnoses of substance abuse, dependence or binge drinking patterns, and we treat a tiny, tiny fraction of them effectively. We spend billions on the war on drugs, on research and on treatment and yet have little overall impact on the...
-
Implementing Best Practices – Seven Core Processes
Implementing best practice care for persons struggling with mental illness and substance use in real world settings can be challenging. At the Institute for Community Living (ICL), where we provide behavioral and physical health care for a widely diverse population and place strong emphasis on...
-
Intentional Peer Support: Using a Crisis as an Opportunity for Growth and Change
In January 2013, Community Access, in partnership with the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, launched the first alternative to hospitalization program in New York City. Called a crisis respite center, the new program has several unique features that, compared to “treatment as usual,”...
-
Merging Legal, Clinical and Medical Issues for the Most Effective Treatment Outcomes
Drug courts began in Miami-Dade County Florida started a maverick program to combine rehabilitative substance abuse treatment within the justice system sanctions. Since that time, 2,743 drug courts have been developed across the country. This was a progressive initiative that has proven to be...
