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Educational Workshops
Educational Workshops can be arranged for groups of professionals and non-professionals who are interested in a particular subject. These are usually one day workshops, but can be tailored to suit individual requirements. Some workshops may include experiential content. The content of all workshops can be presented and discussed at more informal small groups or family settings. In-service training can be given if required. Costs for all workshops are negotiable.
Recovery From Addiction
This will cover the basics tenets of recovery from addictions such as alcohol, drug and food addiction, gambling, relationship and love addiction, sex addiction, cigarette smoking, TV and video addiction (including games) etc. Triggers and boundaries will be examined, as will the concepts of "compliance versus surrender". The major 12 step groups dealing with these problems are examined, with a view to best utilising their resources, and avoiding their drawbacks.
There are differences in all the addictions, but the core issue is always about trying to feel better, or not feel worse, or trying to avoid the emotional and/or physical pain that results in not giving in to that first impulse to act out. Learning how to handle these issues is essential to recovery.
Recovery From Sex Addiction
A sex addict is a person who repeatedly engages in a sexual activity that causes unwanted and/or destructive consequences to themselves and/or others. Most sex addicts are men, but women can also be addicted. At the lower end of the scale may be compulsive masturbation and the use of pornography, and at the other end can be child molestation and incest. However, even the mildest forms of sex addiction can result in severe consequences.
Sexual addiction is perhaps more shame-based than many other addictions, and certainly it is little understood by most people, including many professionals. Recovery from sexual addiction can sometimes need experiential work to deal with childhood trauma before counselling can be effective in helping to stop the addiction.
Recovery From Codependency or Adult Child Syndrome
Most us try to get on with our lives as we leave childhood and enter adulthood, and often suppress or deny any abuse that may have taken place. But we always carry the emotional baggage with us. Until this is faced and resolved our current lives will always be impacted by it, and will particularly affect our relationships, as well as our self-worth. Ignoring past trauma, and “just getting on with it”, can prove to be a very limiting way of going through life, although outward appearances may not show it. For example – work addiction can be a socially acceptable way of avoiding personal and family problems, as can caring for others to the detriment of oneself.
Getting rid of emotional baggage, and freeing our "inner child" to enjoy life in partnership with the "adult" is the most exciting journey we can go on.
Understanding Denial and Intervention
Denial is what allows someone to continue with behaviour which is hurting them, and those they care for. Denial is also what allows individuals, families and society to do nothing to help stop the problem from continuing. A thorough understanding of the power of denial is essential in understanding, and dealing with, these problems. It can also go beyond the personal sphere, and at its worst can encompass whole nations.
We have learned that it usually needs more than “facts” to get someone to see something in a new way. And there is now evidence that presenting facts can simply reinforce some people in their current denial.
A structured intervention is one answer that works well in family and work environments. Intervention training usually involves those who are closest to the person in denial, and have suffered emotional pain because of that person’s behaviour. A well-planned intervention can often break through the denial enough to get the person into recovery.
Preventing Relapse
Relapse is a major factor in dealing with any kind of addictive behaviour. However, the individual causes can be identified, and action taken to prevent their occurrence. It may be that other problems apart from the presenting one need to be addressed before relapse can be avoided. The shame that relapse often produces can cause despair, and a giving up attitude– which results in further relapse.
Relapse has to be seen as a learning experience, and examined closely to discover the causes. Boundaries can then be created to help avoid trigger’s that can initiate a relapse. But there can be trigger's that cannot be avoided, and a committment to an appropriate plan of action needs to be in place. Special care needs to taken in monitoring the thinking, and not giving energy to the thinking that leads to relapse
Until relapse is seen as a chance to learn what to avoid, or prepare for, then trying to recover in ignorance is going to be a hit and miss affair, and even initial success may not last very long.