Rehabilitation Clinical Director, Kolmac Clinic

>> Hi, my name is Jen Dorsey. I'm the Clinical Director here at the Kolmac Clinic in Washington, D.C. If you imagine an orchestra, there's a conductor or in this case, conductors. The conductors are certainly a part of the orchestra but they're not playing an instrument. The orchestra really is responsible for creating the music. They all have their own individual part and if everybody's not involved it's not going to sound right. And that's kind of a good metaphor for what the clinicians in the group psychotherapy [inaudible] to do. They're more conducting and guiding. They're not telling people what they should be talking about. Helping folks to identify -- to really work through their own process in the here and now what's coming up for them as they're listening to other group members talk about their own experiences. So often times in group therapy, you can actually see and experience people having shifts in perception and changes in thinking actually right there in front of you which is really nice. Modality as you said is group therapy and for us that involves a few things. It means one of the main concerns with people who have substance abuse is there's a significant amount of shame and guilt involved. And so being with a group of people who can identify and who really understand not just the outside experiences but also the underlying shame, guilt, remorse, embarrassment, sadness, grief, and loss. That there's a nice sense of belonging. I'm not the only who has this. So that's a huge major part of what our folks work on while they're here. Certainly before any of that it's stopping the cycle of drinking or using and that's because all of the work that somebody has to do on themselves can't happen unless they've stopped drinking or using. Our patients are also working on developing a really comprehensive recovery plan that meets their individual needs. So not everybody recovers in the same way but a clinician's role in the first hour is to kind of run a check in. To use motivational interviewing skills to help people identify and move through stages of change. Helping our patients to make the argument for change rather than [inaudible] as a punished and saying you have to do this. The change usually does not happen when other people are telling you, you need to do it. And then the third hour, that's more of an educational hour. So the clinicians are responsible for providing a good amount of education about addiction and recovery whether it's in a very traditional lecture format which would definitely be more of my area. And then I also have some wonderful clinicians who are -- really love to do more experiential, more of an experiential format. So they're doing guided imagery and meditation, movement therapy, family sculpting, no one sitting down. People have crayons. So a variety of different ways of helping folks learn about addiction and recovery.