Disclaimer: Nothing in this document should be taken or held as clinical instruction, clinical supervision, or advisory concerning patient care.
In this work I’ll share three techniques for addiction counseling I’ve picked up over the years.
These techniques can help addiction counselors improve the flow, rhythm, and feel of their addiction counseling.
I’ll name the techniques, explain what is meant by each, and conclude with some general suggestions.
The three techniques are ultimately meant to be used together as one.
Here are the three techniques:
- Eliminate all question-asking
- Breathe through your first 3 “act-hungers” to speak
- Wait until an intuition emerges, and consider sharing it
Eliminate all question-asking
This first one helps clear the atmosphere and process. And besides, being asked a bunch of questions is aversive, and makes the person feel something like a pin cushion.
This technique is easy. Simply don’t ask any questions at all.
If you must gain some specific information, form an affirmation or give an instruction. Something like that. (Just don’t phrase anything as a question).
For example:
- Tell me about your family.
- I’m interested! Keep going!
- If I was going to ask a question, it might be about…
The abolition of question asking removes a number of hindrances. And it helps to improve the raw material of the therapeutic relationship.
It does so by what it removes. Not only does it remove probing but it also removes attempts at cornering someone with an interrogation.
And this elimination of questions also places the demand where it belongs – on the counselor, instead of the patient.
One might ask, “What would an addiction counselor do if they were not allowed to ask any questions?”
My answer might be, “Exactly!”
Breathe through the first 3 act-hungers to speak
An “act-hunger” is the name for a felt push to do a certain thing. It’s a term from therapy methods that include action, such as psychodrama. The concept is very simple. It’s the felt desire to say something, or take a certain action. It can be like a sudden compulsion to do or say what comes to mind. It’s an impulse you feel.
This second technique for the addiction counselor, breathing through act-hungers to speak, helps us be mindful of our own interior. And in this technique, when an act-hunger to say something emerges, we just consciously let the act-hunger pass. We don’t fight it, and we don’t enact it.
When first learning this skill it can be helpful to consciously make a mental note that we noticed the act-hunger. And then silently and un-noticeably breathe through it.
Typically, once the first act-hunger to speak passes, the interaction of time and space in the session will continue and then be interrupted a bit later by another act-hunger to speak.
The bottom line is that the counselor is taught to anticipate a series or sequence of separate act-hungers.
It’s usually the case that as each act-hunger is breathed-through, the length of time between each one will lengthen. And usually the strength or intensity of each one will diminish.
This skill is easy too! When you feel a push to speak, breathe through it.
Wait until an intuition emerges, and consider sharing it
Eventually, after a sequence of act-hungers pass, the counselor is in an open space that’s not being interrupted. Or at least not nearly as often.
And typically, after the third act-hunger or so, a much longer open space will form. And during that much longer open space, an intuition will begin to emerge or be illuminated.
A certain kind of understanding will begin to emerge from the counselor’s intuition.
This content from intuition is not knowledge from top-down logic that’s been purposefully figured out. It’s more like an “ah-ha!” or an “Oh!” It’s formed from insight rather than deduced from facts. And the emergence of this intuitive knowing is often rather gentle. And the understanding that’s there can sometimes take time to unfold completely.
Interestingly, when something emerges from the intuition in this context, it’s often not accompanied by an act-hunger to speak. (Personally, I find this fact and experience interesting).
Inside of the awareness that this intuition brings, the counselor can hold whatever emerged and hold it lightly. And eventually decide whether to say it or not. And when to say it.
Typically in this process, both the holding of the content of the intuition and the timing of the deciding to share it or not are done without an act-hunger or any urgency to decide at all.
One way to share such an intuition is to do so a bit quizzically, asking for the patient to help figure out the reality. Rather than asserting the intuition as final or as the truth.
For example:
- I think I might like to share something that’s coming to mind. I’m not really sure if it’s entirely correct, or correct at all. But it does come to mind.
Yes, this technique is also easy! Our intuition works without our conscious effort, and it works all on its own! We don’t have to push it in any way and we’re not in charge of when it speaks. When it does start to speak, just listen and note what it’s saying.
When it does so, simply sit with it. And later on, let yourself decide if it’s worth sharing or not. And if and when you do share it, do so as a learner co-creating the product of the session.
Easy!
Suggested Reading
The Change Process. September 8, 2020.
Negative Space. January 15, 2021.
Gathering Ideas From Outside the Field: Lessons from Jackson Pollock. November 29, 2021.
