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RE: Treatment Resistant Families
In working with addicted women with histories of child maltreatment, one of
the things we're learned is that it is difficult to get these women into
addiction programs because they are so treatment resistant. The typical
approach to dealing with resistant addicts is to increase their pain level
(make them "hit bottom" faster) so that they are more willing to accept
treatment. That did not work with this population, and we finally figured
out that they did not have an absence of pain in their lives, but rather an
absence of hope. If you raise the pain level of someone who has hope (e.g.,
a white, middle-class, affluent male), he is apt to enter treatment, b/c he
has something to look forward to. If the client "lives on the bottom", but
has no hope, what good does it do to raise her pain level? Why should they
enter treatment? We began focusing on increasing hope among our population
of women, and the results were amazing.
-Randy Webber
J. Randall (Randy) Webber, M.P.H. rwebber@chestnut.org
Director of Training and Publications
Chestnut Health Systems
Lighthouse Institute
720 W. Chestnut Street
Bloomington, IL 61701
(309) 829-1058 Ext 3411
<http://www.chestnut.org/li/>
"All people are equal, it is not birth, it is virtue alone that makes
the difference. "
- Voltaire
-----Original Message-----
From: owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu
[mailto:owner-CHILD-MALTREATMENT-RESEARCH-L@cornell.edu]On Behalf Of
Richard Embry
Sent: Monday, March 05, 2001 12:55 PM
To: Child Maltreatment Researchers
Subject: Treatment Resistant Families
In a recent publication Richard Gelles discusses the concept of
treatment resistant families--those families that present both a high
likelihood of serious child maltreatment recurrence and low likelihood of
responding to current intervention strategies.
Does anyone know of additional writings on this topic--either
theoretical or empirical? Thanks in advance.
****************************************
Richard A. Embry, Ph.D., M.S.W.
Assistant Professor
Columbia University
School of Social Work
622 West 113th Street MC 4600
New York, NY 10025
212-854-7885 V/TDD
re186@columbia.edu