drug addiction the individuals ability to choose
Drug Addiction: The Individual’s Ability to Choose
Writen by William L. Smith Ph. D.
My Philosophy:
I have a strong belief in the ability of mankind to achieve any goal truly desired. I further believe that man’s capacity for personal growth is limited only by his imagination. Man is a unique organism, and is the only organism with the capacity to think and the ability to transcend his environment. Man is a self-creating being who was not innately endowed with personality or goal but must choose them by acts of personal decision.
The Individual is Free to Choose: The driving force that propel the assumptions of individual choice dictate that we are not controlled by external influences or events. For example, the central tenet of Choice Theory is that we internally motivated by identifiable psychological needs. These needs are regarded as being culture free, and all our behaviour is directed to making choices to satisfy these genetically based psychological needs: Love, Belonging, Power, Freedom, Fun, and Survival. A therapy that leads all addicted individuals toward reality, toward grappling successfully with the tangible and intangible aspects of the real world, might accurately be called a therapy toward reality, or simply Reality Therapy; also known as Choice Theory. In this article Reality Therapy and Choice Theory is used interchangeable.
Understandably, it is not enough to help an client face reality; he must also learn to fulfill his needs. Previously, when the individual attempted to fulfill its needs in the real world he or she was unsuccessful. They begin to deny the real world and try to fulfill their needs “as if” some aspects of the world did not exist, or in defiance of their existance. For instance, a psychotic individual who lives in a world of his own, and a delinquent teenager who repeatedly breaks the law are common examples of these two conditions. Even the individual with a stomach ulcer who seems to be facing reality in every way is upon closer investigation often found to be attempting more than he can cope with, and his ulcer is the body’s reaction to the stress. Therefore, to do Reality Therapy, or activate the Choice Theory, the clinician must not only be able to help the client accept the real world, but he must then further help him to fulfill his needs in the real world so that he will have no inclination in the future to deny its existence.
Responsibility: Responsibility, a concept basic to Reality Therapy, is here defined as the ability to fill one’s needs, and to do so in a way that does not deprive others of the ability to fulfill their needs. For example, a responsible person choose to do that which gives him a feeling of self-worth and a feeling that he is worthwhile to others. He is motivated to strive and perhaps endure privation to attain self-worth. The teaching of responsibility is the most important task of all higher animals, man most certainly included. Except for man this task is performed primarily under the pressure of instinct…instinct, related directly to the continuation of the species. Children want to be responsible, but they will not accept discipline and leard better ways unless they feel the parents care enough to show them actively the responsibility that they are advocating. Again, parents who are willing to suffer the pain of the child’s anger by firmly holding him to the responsible path are teaching him a lesson that will help him all the rest of his life. The parent must not only hold the child to the correct course of action, they must also show by example that they are capable of taking the responsible course.
In essence, we gain self-respect through discipline and closeness to others through love. Discipline must always have within it the element of love. For example, I care enough about you to force you to act in a better way; you will learn through experience which is the right way. Similarly, love must always have an element of discipline. I love you because you are a worthwhile person, because I respect you and feel you respect me as well as yourself. Relating and Involvement of Therapeutic Counseling: Therapy is a special kind of teaching or training which attempts to accomplish in a relatively short intense period what should have been established during normal growing up. The more irresponsible the person, the more he has to learn about acceptable realistic behavior in order to fulfill his needs. However, the drug addict, the chronic alcoholic, and the severely psychotic are examples of deeply irresponsible people with whom it is difficult to gain sufficient involvement so that they can learn or relearn better ways to fulfill their needs.
Usually the most difficult of the phases in therapy is the first, the gaining of the involvement that the individual so desperately needs, but thathe has been so unsuccessful in attaining or maintaining up to the time he comes in for treatment.
Unless the requisite involvement exists between the necessarily responsible therapist and the irresponsible individual, there can be no therapy. The guiding principles of Reality Therapy are directed toward achieving the proper involvement, a completely honest human relationship, in which the individual, for perhaps the first time in his life realizes that someone cares enough about him not only to accept him, but to help him fulfill his needs in the real world.
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Dr. Smith is a psychologist and personal consultant with over 30 years experiences with individuals and groups; addressing various personal problems, such as relationship of all nature. I have had many successes, working online, consulting with clients with history of sexual trauma including incest and other profoundly personal problems. Many of my clients are successful using this format, E-therapy, it allows some distance for the client facilitating deeper communication and access to past memories and open the path to exploration and resolution. Dr. Smith is available at: http://insightconsultant.com |