Introduction
Strengths-based practices establish the most effective ways of collaboration between different parties to achieve a specific goal by focusing on their strengths rather than weaknesses. It includes harm reduction, motivational interviewing, solution-focused interventions, and cognitive-behavioral therapy. This approach undermines previous failures and problems and concentrates on positive possibilities. All social groups should access strengths-based practices with a chance to make an informed choice and self-determination and terminate marginalization.
Discussion
While strengths-based practices advocate for the equal rights of the patients to decide their therapy choices, the abstinence-only approach deprives them of self-management. However, it is offered by 75% of alcohol and drug treatment providers (Wormder & Davis 316). If I were to introduce a strengths-based method in such settings, I would convince my colleagues that the patients have fundamental human rights not to be manipulated or coerced. It is essential to start by educating about the potential benefits of this method, as clinicians can easily convince not all people to stop their destructive behavior. The most effective way is to start with one patient to illustrate the success and justify that the professional can reproduce it in other cases.
Meanwhile, the harm reduction approach decreases the repercussions of drug addiction, providing an individualized approach to every client. The most common difficulty for physicians is that many patients are misguided by the idea that they can continue taking the addictive substances moderately. It deteriorates their condition, thus raising the importance of drug education and diminishing stigmatization. More importantly, clinicians are perceived as uneducated individuals with less street culture knowledge and limited geographic connection with targeted populations (Wormer and Davis 319). In order to address it, they should provide outreach through professionals, pamphlets, and clean syringes for the exchange. Other barriers include the need for homeless people to fill out paperwork to be included in the therapy. Professionals can resolve this problem by minimizing the documents and lowering the threshold services. Although clinicians face several problems, they have medical, legal, and educational means to address them.
Conclusion
To conclude, there are still several problems that patients with addiction and their clinicians should address during the therapy selection. If every patient has a chance to decide on the recovery, he is more engaged in the process and more optimistic about its outcomes. Thus, strengths-based practices should be more widespread to ensure that the populations abstain from their addictions more successfully in less stressful conditions.
Work Cited
Wormer, Katherine and Davis, Diane Rae. “Chapter 8: Strengths- and Evidence-based Helping Strategies.” Addiction Treatment: a Strengths Perspective (4th ed.), Cengage Learning, 2018, pp. 313-352.