Improving Client/Patient Collaboration in Treatment
To improve collaboration between you and your clients/patients, simply practice the following behaviors as your norms. See the
list below, and practice, practice, practice.
- Present with an attitude of helpfulness and authentic caring. Empathy and authentic concern are required.
- Recognize the reality that clients/patients are at different levels of readiness to make changes – almost alway NOT where you are in the process.
- Know how to use cognitive-behavioral therapies, mindfulness-based stress reduction, deepo psychodynamics in alliance building, and other effective approaches.
- Complete a cost-benefit analysis grid with the person, and work with pros/cons of staying the same vs changing.
- Do whatever you can to enhance the quality of the clinical relationship.
- Act within an understanding of equality; you are not able to control any person who is suffering.
- Provide psychoeducation where needed.
- Anticipate barriers to making desired changes; offer concrete support and help in doing so.
- Your clinical interventions should be evidence-based for a higher probability of success.
- Use the person’s personal hopes, goals, and motivations.
- Use task analysis as a behavioral method to break down larger tasks into smaller, more manageable tasks.
- Be willing to try harm reduction when people appear pre-contemplative in stages of change.
- Provide direct feedback, with more emphasis on reinforcing praise rather than scolding.
- Remain in the Middle Way regarding too much/too little expected change, as well as the timing and time required for any changes to occur.
- Be highly mindful of both your own emotion regulation and that of the person you are working with. Practice emotion regulation skills often.
- Intervene quickly in anxiety, depression, substance misuse, and trauma. Intervene carefully, intelligently, and again with evidence-based actions.
- Remember in crisis situations that safety is first, stabilization is second.
- Identify people, places, and things that help and hinder progress into healthier life patterns.
- Monitor serious symptoms and act accordingly. If medications are required, be part of the monitoring system and do “check-ins” often.
- Use self-help groups if the client/patient finds them helpful. One needs to participate to know the correct answer here.
- Do GOOD self-care and get effective clinical supervision when needed.
For more information refer to Daley, D. C. and Zuckoff, A. (1999). Improving Treatment Compliance: Counseling and Systems Strategies for Substance Abuse and Dual Disorders. Center City, MINN. Hazelden.
Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC
From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont
Author of Mindful Happiness
Psychological Association in March, 2017, and opinions in The Atlantic warn of potential and actual biopsychosocial dangers of excessive smartphone use. By now most of us realize that smartphone use is a strongly reinforced habitual behavior, a habitual behavior that results in huge profits for the industry. Like so much else in American commerce, the profit incentive takes precedent over the health of the people using the products. Here are some things the researchers discovered. Most of these findings resulted from heavy, addictive use of smartphones (on 24/7, spending many hours a day connected, loss of sleep to remain connected, rising anxiety when not connected, etc.). Here is a list of possible problems to consider quite seriously.
its underground riches. Nothing new here! It is only a matter of time before shots are fired and people die! Some say that the Dakota Access Oil Pipeline may have already violated earlier treaty obligations with The Sioux. That has NEVER prevented the dominant white culture from acting for its own financial interests in the past – nothing new here. It may be environmental racism that The Army Corp of Engineers moved the pipeline route away from Bismarck (fear of possible water contamination for mainly white folks) so it now crosses land and water of First Nations People. The marginalization and disrespect continue. Perhaps this is urban slum politics in the great rural areas of the Dakotas. Such fears regarding Bismarck simply emphasize that the technology being used is NOT completely safe and dependable. This is the FALSE PROMISE OF TECHNOLOGY. Like so many of our technological advances (the internet for example), the primacy of safety and security have been over-shadowed by the desire for free flow of commerce and thus greater 
profits. The core issue is that such oil extraction and use continues to threaten mother earth’s health AND OUR FUTURE AS HUMANS. Oil profiteers, using private and public security forces with armored military vehicles and attach dogs, are determined to force the Sioux off the land – perhaps off their own land. Praise to Amy Goodman for reportedly filming brutal dog attacks and releasing the video into the internet network. It is reported that many national unions (except the national AFL-CIO) have already stated their support for the Standing Rock Sioux in their fight against corporate greed (America’s #1 problem) and cultural repression (also a #1 problem – “black lives matter”). Perhaps we will witness annihilation once again (and again and again). Is this “the great American dream?” No!
wrong, this may be that time. President Obama, as the Commander and Chief (notice the word, “chief”), this is a good time to act on the behalf of oppressed people, even if it includes acting against corporate profiteering interests.
this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness was banished and light arose, as happens in one who dwells diligent, ardent, and resolute.” From the Mahasaccaka Sutra.
significant change in one’s relationship to divinity. With sitting in prayer and meditation one of the earliest known forms of formal meditation is the Judeo-Christian practice of Hesychast. This meditation method implied great grace and personal commitment to practice. Some of the key characteristics of Hesychast meditation are as follows.