One-Day Version: “Getting It”(Motivation for Maintenance)

Note: This version of the workshops covers the material in one day, does not allow for nearly as much experiential learning and processing.

Workshop Goal: show counselors how to utilize typical thinking at moments of addictive relapse to develop  generic discrepancies which motivate, not just for change, but for working at the maintenance stage of recovery. Counselors will help clients connect their own painful experience with the necessity for maintenance tools of 12 step recovery.

Learning objectives for Part One: Developing Discrepancies from “Wishful Thinking”

1. Use the tool of reliving and/or closed-ended questioning to elicit clients’ “wishful thinking” from relapse decisions.
2. Perform and process two group exercises, “BFOTO” (Blinding Flash of the Obvious) and “Force of Memory Scale”
3. Develop four motivational discrepancies, (“MOWS”) “Memory,” “Ownership,” “Willpower,” and “Sanity.”
4. Help clients connect these four discrepancies to (both change and) maintenance tools of 12 step recovery.

 

Learning objectives for Part Two: Developing  Discrepancies from “Expletive
Thinking”

 

1. Use the tool of reliving and/or closed-ended questioning to elicit “expletive thinking” from clients’ relapse decisions
2. Perform and process group motivational exercise, “Expletive Deleted”
3. Develop four motivational discrepancies, (“QUIC”), “Quitting, “Uncaring,” “Immaturity,” and “Coping.”
4. Help clients connect these four discrepancies to (both change and) maintenance tools of 12 step recovery.

 

Workshop Agenda:

 

Part I: Developing Discrepancies from “Wishful Thinking”

8 AM to 8:30 AM: sign in and receive workshop materials. Caffeinated beverages, prn.

8:30 AM to 9 AM: introductions and assessment of participant experience with motivational interviewing and 12 Step Recovery. Participant expectations.

9 AM to 9:30 PM: Premack’s smoker – the defining example of “motivational discrepancy”

9:30 AM to 10 AM: group exercise, “Blinding Flash of the Obvious,” (BFOTO)

 

10 AM to 10:15 AM: break

 

10:15 AM to 10:45 AM: the discrepancy of ownership, how it motivates, and how 12 step recovery addresses it.

10:45 AM to 11:15 AM: Group exercise, “Force of Memory Scale,” the discrepancy of memory, how it motivates, and how 12 step recovery addresses it.

11:15 AM to 11:30 AM: The schizophrenic and the addict – the discrepancy of sanity, how it motivates, and how 12 step recovery addresses it.

11:30 AM to 12 noon: the discrepancy of willpower, how it motivates and how 12 step recovery addresses it.

 

12 noon to 1 PM: lunch.

 

Part II: Developing Discrepancies from “Expletive Thinking”

 

1 PM to 1:30 PM: Exercise, “Expletive Deleted”

1 PM to 2 PM, the discrepancy of “uncaring,” what has happened and what will happen, how 12 step recovery deals with either one.

2 PM to 2:45 PM: the discrepancies of “quitting” and of “immaturity,” how they motivate and how 12 step recovery addresses them.

 

2:45 PM to 3 PM: break

 

3 PM to 4 PM: the discrepancy of “coping” – how it motivates, and how well step recovery addresses it. Brief introduction to coping skills.

4 PM to 4:30 PM: summary, feedback, questions, evaluations.