Individualized Treatment Plans

While addiction has certain patterns and predictable characteristics and diagnostics, the way it works and takes hold of a life varies from individual to individual. Bodies process chemical substances differently and minds respond uniquely. The phenomenon of 12-Step recovery gives people a simple step-by-step path or suggested outline that addresses the thinking and behavior that are both affected and damaged by the disease. Thus, rigorous commitment to "working the steps" of recovery heals many mood and personality disorders as well as disordered and unhealthy character and life issues. In family systems affected by addiction, disorders often go unnoticed because they fit within the unhealthy structure of the family affected by the disease of addiction. In fact, unhealthy ways of relating are often coping mechanisms and survival strategies that develop to manage the pain of addiction or living with an addict. The hijacked brain and behaviors don't stand a chance of breaking out of the family system or the disease as long as everyone continues in silence and denial.

Residential and Extended Care treatment provide an opportunity to reside in a healthy environment where those attitudes and behaviors stand out and become obvious to everyone -- most of all, the addict. Once they are recognized, healing can begin. Therapists and staff members model recovery thinking and behaviors to clients and to one another while they integrate clients into the treatment center where safety and serenity provide a place for recognition and healing. Each client has a unique story about the progression of their addiction that all other clients relate to essentially.

While the details vary, the principles and progression of use: isolation, escalation, consequences, damage control and management strategies are common themes that any addicted person can relate to readily. One-on-one therapy and the plan that the treatment team develops for each client are based on the unique features of the individual experience as well as each client's history, psychiatric needs, and professional and family context.

Unique to the task-model curriculum for treatment of Chemical Dependency, developed by Dr. Stefanie Carnes, PhD, LMFT, CSAT, is the therapeutic focus on developing recommended "performable" tasks that demonstrate an experiential knowledge of 12-Step recovery. The curriculum is stable and constant, easily adapted to each individual's level of recognition and particular areas of unmanageability and dysfunction. Life competencies that develop also become unique expressions of individuality. The foundational core of solid, unchangeable steps and principles, approached individually, with gentleness and therapeutic guidance, while holding each person’s unique experience clearly in view, creates an opportunity for one to grow in safety, honesty, and integrity.