Presentations 2009 - 2010

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Thursday, May 30, 2010

Compassionate Responses in Addiction Practices

Current predominant theories seek to locate the etiology of the addiction experience within biochemical conditions - a phenomenon which appears to represent the latest variant of the disease metaphor. Presented will be a different kind of dialogue regarding the impact on a person living within an "addict" identity. This presentation will outline compassionate responses to the addiction experience and reflect upon the addiction experience as an existentialist search for a way out of suffering and pain.

Participants will gain an understanding of:

• Ways in which "addict" and "alcoholic" deficit identities can become re-visioned based upon strength-based and collaborative re-authoring therapeutic conversation;
• The distinction(s) between substance use, misuse and abuse;
• Working with a person struggling with substance misuse from a more thorough, context-based understanding of their lived experience and relationships;
• Substance misuse as a social problem, not an individual pathology;

Presenter: Colin Sanders, MA, RCC

Colin Sanders, MA, RCC, currently works as a therapist with the Employee & Family Assistance Program of Vancouver Coastal Health and is a Senior Faculty member of Vancouver's City University where he both teaches and coordinates the City University internship clinic.