Topic: clinical management

Your goal is always to use the extra time to measurably increase the chances of a good outcome for that patient.

There’s this big group we lump under the heading ‘precontemplation’. But in practice, there are precontemplators, and pre-pre-contemplators, and pre-pre-pre-pre-pre-contemplators.

A model generally supersedes other models not because it is perfect in every respect, but because it seems to explain certain aspects better than its predecessors.

A key breakthrough for recovering clients: The realization that, while they cannot control their disease, they can do a lot about their own recovery.

A patient who leaves ASA can’t be considered a treatment success, and a high ASA rate is sure to damage a program’s reputation. Analysis and preventive action can lower your rate of ASA discharges. Here are a few simple suggestions.

If your inpatient provider determines eligibility using ASAM patient placement criteria, don’t forget to describe the patient’s need in those terms. Makes your case a little stronger by making their job a little easier.

I like to say that most of the conflicts are a tempest in a teapot — the problem being that you are in the teapot along with the tempest.

Countertransference issues can be a genuine hazard in our field. If allowed to continue, it can lead to some pretty spectacular incidents.

Counselors and therapists are — and I’m generalizing shamelessly here, so forgive me — warm, empathetic, even sympathetic by nature.

Crisis motivates addicts to seek treatment. But the addict’s motivation to remain in treatment decreases as he feels better.