She has been an educator of addiction counselors in many schools including the University of California at Davis in the Addiction Studies Program, and the University of Nevada/Bureau of Alcohol and Drug summer school for Employee Assistance Professionals for 15 years. Dr. Willis has studied and presented at national conferences on multi-generational trauma and addiction.”
We are pleased that Dr. Willis took the time to share her insights on the importance of trauma informed care:
A few houses ago, my next-door neighbor was a heroin addict. It was a frequent experience for me to come home from work and see a police car and an ambulance in front of his house, his children sitting on the front steps crying. I’d peek in the open front door and see paramedics working on his limp, clammy body, trying to revive him from yet another drug overdose.
One day I caught him sitting on his front porch, smoking a Marlboro and nursing a broken foot. I stopped to chat, and he told me he’d been welding a steel riser on the third floor of a new building and had fallen down the elevator shaft, landing on his leg, which shattered his foot. I asked if he’d been high. He said no. Of course, he was lying. I asked him if he were still attending his Narcotics Anonymous Meetings. He said yes. Again, lying. I asked him when he was going to stop using. What he said struck me: “Well, you know. My wife wants me to do it and my kids want me to and I just feel bad about it. But, as a therapist, you must know that people only change for themselves. Nothins gonna work until I do it for myself, right?” It was at once an admission that he would not stop using, and a challenge – no one in his life had arisen who was more important to him than the heroin.
David Kelley, famous designer and founder of IDEO (arguably the world’s most innovative design-thought company), recently gave an interview in Fast Company magazine. He talked of his devastating fight against stage four cancer. After nine months of chemo, surgery, radiation, and losing 40 pounds, he finally beat it. What motivated him to keep going? “At first, you think, ‘I don’t want to miss her growing up.’ [referring to his daughter] That’s motivating, but not that motivating,” he says. “It’s when you manage to get out of yourself and start thinking of her that you get the resolve to continue. When you think, I don’t want her not to have a father — then you want to stay alive.”
David’s point is important, and not just semantics. The most difficult task I face in my line of work is motivating young women to want what is best for them, even when it hurts terribly or scares them to death. I’ve found that appealing to their sense of self rarely works. They hardly ever “do it for themselves”, at least at first. We know from research about change that people – teenagers included – are more likely “do it for someone else” first.
This presents a fantastic opportunity for us to build relationships with suffering young women, and then use the resulting trust and love to help motivate them toward healing.
One young woman shut herself in her room this week. She wanted to give up. She was disappointed and disgusted with herself. In that state of mind, there is no way she was going to keep working on her issues “for herself”. Thankfully, I have a relationship with her, built over the last few weeks. A brief visit and short conversation with her brought her spirits up, and helped her return to participation in the House. Why? Because she didn’t want to disappoint me, and she could cling to my confidence in her, even when hers was low.
So, all of this begs the question: How can we use our relationships with those we love to encourage, motivate, and support them in their struggles to change for the better?
Perhaps even more important is this question: What are we avoiding changing within ourselves, and for whom will we do it?
Co-morbid. No, it’s not a Halloween term. It means that someone has multiple diagnosable disorders.
The Toronto Sun ran an infuriating story on a teen who has been denied treatment. Actually, it’s worse. She’s being forced into the wrong kind of treatment. Who is forcing her? The Ministry of Health. Why? Because they have no concept of what co-morbid means.
I have been researching mental health services in Canada for the past four years. What I’ve found is that most of their treatment is monochromatic. If you have anorexia, they can treat you. If you have depression, they have services for that. But if you have anorexia AND depression at the same time (heaven forbid – what are the odds??) then you are out of luck.
One Toronto psychiatrist I spoke with this summer – Dr. Anthony Levitt (a fantastic individual) – told me the story of a girl who had an addiction and anorexia. She got treated in Toronto for addiction, but her anorexia flared. So, they sent her to an eating disorder clinic. Her anorexia improved, but her addiction issues spiked. Guess what? There was nowhere else to send her in all of Ontario. No one treats both anorexia and addiction.
And don’t get me started on the paucity of teen treatment options in the UK, in South Africa, Australia, Bermuda, Singapore, etc.
But wait. America is no better. Have you looked at adult addiction treatment centers lately? In the last half-decade it’s like they awoke from a dream and realized, “Hey! People who are addicted also suffer from trauma. Maybe we should treat both!” Thank heavens there are some who are realizing that a 45-day program can’t cure addiction because it can’t address co-morbidity in that short of a time.
We are Neanderthals afraid of fire. The tragedy is this: we have no excuse. Research shows over and over again that people with family problems typically also suffer from depression and anxiety. People with eating disorders usually are depressed. Bi-polar disorder rarely occurs in a vacuum. So, we are more like Neanderthals surrounded on all sides by an advanced alien race. We’re staring and drooling and scratching our backsides, all the while ignoring the advances in mental health all around us.
I had an excellent conversation over dinner two weeks ago with Peter Goodson. He just got involved with Beacon House, one of the oldest adult addiction centers in the country. Check it out at www.beaconhouse.org He understands the limitations of short-term treatment, and so he is addressing that issue in a novel way: his aftercare program is out-of-this-world! Contact them to find out about it. They’re going to address co-morbidity in the right way, even with the limitations of short-term treatment.
As human beings, we are complex entities. Doesn’t it just make sense that we need to stop focusing so much energy and money and time on symptoms? Let’s get down to the root of the problem. Let’s get co-morbid!
