The Imperative of Acculturating the Addict to the Therapeutic Culture of Recovery The early stages of addiction recovery are often characterized by the intricate and multifaceted defenses developed by the addict, which simultaneously serve as both a mechanism of self-preservation and a formidable barrier to genuine therapeutic progress. This essay delves into the complexity of […]
“Trauma is a pervasive fact of modern life,” Peter Levine wrote in his 1997 book Waking The Tiger: Healing Trauma. “Most of us have been traumatized, not just soldiers or victims of abuse or attack. Both the sources and consequences of trauma are wide-ranging and often hidden from our awareness.” For Levine, the key to […]
Trauma, Addiction, and Healing & The Criticality of Individualized Diagnosis and Treatment The Trauma-Addiction Connection In his influential 2009 book In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction, Hungarian-Canadian physician and author Gabor Maté argued that most addictions are primarily driven by unprocessed trauma rather than stem from moral turpitude or lack of […]
This article is the first in a series about family systems and the reciprocal relationship between family therapy and mental health treatment. If nothing else, the pandemic has brought each of us a greater understanding of how we relate to one another: we miss our co-workers, we miss simple interactions with our neighbors, we start […]
