Publications

Engaging Conversations: Substance Use and Therapeutic Process

22 November 2012

The guide examines therapeutic process, the exchange between client and clinician through which the work happens. The focus is not so much on content — how to treat substance use or coexisting concerns — as on the relationship being formed, what helps and the challenges that arise’. This guide is intended to complement existing resources by offering some practical ideas about how to take some of the complexity of working with co-existing concerns into account when you are engaging clients and working out together how you could be most helpful to them. If we have learnt anything about therapeutic work, especially where there are multiple concerns, it’s that the more we learn, the more we realise we don’t know. It’s more about approaching the conversation with an open mind, sitting with uncertainty and trying to do something useful together anyway.

The guide is written by Helen Mentha and Dr Kylie Thomson for Inner East Community Health Service (IECHS) as part of the Improved Services Initiative Capacity Building Grant funded by the Australian Commonwealth Department of Health and Aging (DoHA).

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