Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Meaning in Relapse Prevention Planning
When working on relapse prevention plans with clients, I have the propensity to feel like the clients service is not truly being fulfilled, but rather a fulfillment of an addiction treatment business model. I understand that gaining awareness in triggers, warning signs, coping skills have a valuable role in recovery, but how often does a person in recovery look at their relapse prevention plan. Research has suggested that relapse prevention strategies fail because they do not account for the innate urge for meaning. Relapse prevention planning is missing something, it is missing the focus on why a client should do all the things they write in a relapse prevention plan. How can a client find meaning when it comes to relapse prevention? It has been suggested that addicts use to find "transcendence and meaning", with that being said, what can be done differently to assist in the journey of transcendence and meaning?
Factors Influencing Adolescent Development
Most Significant Factor Influencing Adolescent Development
Adolescent development and social interactions has a very influential impact on how an adolescent creates a defining path and perspective on life’s terms, through trial and error processes. Social interactions can have several complexities such as social competence , which has been described by Broderick & Blewitt as, “a criterion for peer group acceptance, is a broad construct that is not restricted to one set of prescribed behaviors” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 266). Social competence if full of varying responses and values, such as empathy, valuing of relationships, and cognitive processes (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 266). Cognitive processes is difficult to assess because each adolescent has a different perspective and moral judgments. Social skills reflect social competence at every level, which in return can change the path of social exchange between children and peer groups. Social skills can be developed by “modeling, coaching, and reinforcement processes” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 266). Broderick & Blewitt suggest, “Peer group serves many important functions for children and adolescents by providing opportunities for practice in communication, conflict resolution, joint goal setting, cooperative learning, and shared decision making” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 267).
Why I Believe this is the Most Significant Factor
Social influence such as social competence and social skills can be built within the family environment as a child and potentially developed in adolescence through application. Social interaction is a journey that can help define a person, either positive or negative in nature. Adolescence embarks on a journey of more responsibility and the interactions of peer groups can assist with the formation of identity outside the family environment. Sociometry has been used as a way to assess social competence by viewing group processes as a mixture of positive forces, negative forces, and indifferences (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 268). Sociometric categories have “included five subgroups: popular, average, neglected, rejected, and controversial” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 268). Adolescence promotes the adaption of self-identity and the groups based off peer nominations, which in a sense place labels from the positive and negative nominations. Popular children exhibit traits of being “prosocial, cooperative, intelligent, and capable of working well with others” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 269). Research suggests that rejected children show “aggression was the primary attribute” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 269) and is due to being rejected by peers. Rejected also show the opposite traits and characteristics of popular children by having “lower levels of perspective taking, self-control, and positive social interaction skills” (Broderick & Blewitt, 2010, p. 270). Erikson (1950) suggests the “fundamental developmental task that individuals face during adolescence is defining their identity” (Crocetti, Rubini, Luyckx, & Meeus, 2008, p. 983). Identity statuses by ethnicity has shown that adolescents with strong ethnic identity exhibit high self-esteem but it is unclear “whether belonging to ethnic minority groups results in differing identity status membership” (Crocetti et al., 2008, p. 985).
Impact the Decisions of Adolescents
When children try to identify and be accepted into social networks and peer groups the core traits and attribute: physical, cognitive, and emotional can play a large role. Children may be accepted and labeled into the popular group and the children in the rejected group will try to do what they can to fit into that group or adapt to a group that will accept them. The three-factor Model of Identity has interesting insight into the commitment, in-depth exploration, and reconsideration of commitment in the identity processes. The journey of adolescents and identity have two distinguished types of exploration such as the in-depth exploration and reconsideration of commitment, where this leads to an active exploration of current commitments and the reflection on their choices, which leads to the search of additional information about these choices (Klimstra, Hale, Raaijmakers, Branje, & Meeus, 2010, p. 152).
How a Counselor Might Apply this Knowledge
When looking into the identity processes of a client it would be very important to understand the environment and relation to social influence of the client. To gain insight into the client’s worldview would be to understand where they fit into the peer groups during childhood and adolescence. This information could help assist the counselor to form a better case conceptualization and treatment planning with the client. The understanding of when the client’s areas of concerns developed would also help the counselor pick a theoretical orientation to be used to assist the client.
References
Broderick, P. C., & Blewitt, P. (2010). The Life Span: Human Development for Helping Professionals (3rd ed.). Upper Saddle River NJ: Pearson Education, Inc.
Crocetti, E., Rubini, M., Luyckx, K., & Meeus, W. (2008). Identity Formation in Early and Middle Adolescents From Various Ethnic Groups: From Three Dimensions to Five Statuses. Journal of Youth & Adolescence, 37(), 983-996. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10964-007-9222-2
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