Psychotherapy for Clients With Addictive Disorders
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Addictive disorders can be particularly challenging for clients. Not only do these disorders typically interfere with a client’s ability to function in daily life, but they also often manifest as negative and sometimes criminal behaviors. Sometime clients with addictive disorders also suffer from other mental health issues, creating even greater struggles for them to overcome. In your role, you have the opportunity to help clients address their addictions and improve outcomes for both the clients and their families.
Resources
Be sure to review the Learning Resources before completing this activity.
Click the weekly resources link to access the resources.
WEEKLY RESOURCES
To prepare:
Review this week’s Learning Resources and consider the insights they provide about diagnosing and treating addictive disorders. As you watch the 187 Models of Treatment for Addiction video, consider what treatment model you may use the most with clients presenting with addiction.
Search the Walden Library databases and choose a research article that discusses a therapeutic approach for treating clients, families, or groups with addictive disorders.
The Assignment
In a 5- to 10-slide PowerPoint presentation, address the following. Your title and references slides do not count toward the 5- to 10-slide limit.
Provide an overview of the article you selected.
What population (individual, group, or family) is under consideration?
What was the specific intervention that was used? Is this a new intervention or one that was already studied?
What were the author’s claims?
Explain the findings/outcomes of the study in the article. Include whether this will translate into practice with your own clients. If so, how? If not, why?
Explain whether the limitations of the study might impact your ability to use the findings/outcomes presented in the article.
Use the Notes function of PowerPoint to craft presenter notes to expand upon the content of your slides.
Support your response with at least three other peer-reviewed, evidence-based sources. Explain why each of your supporting sources is considered scholarly. Provide references to your sources on your last slide. Be sure to include the article you used as the basis for this Assignment.
Psychotherapy for Clients With Addictive Disorders
Psychotherapy for Clients with Addictive Disorders
Student Name, Student number
Program, Institution
Course Number, Course Name
Instructor
Due Date
ARTICLE OVERVIEW
“Online Group Psychotherapy for Addiction During Covid-19”
Published in 2021
Efficacy of using online group psychotherapy
90% recovery.
60% improved health and anxiety outcomes.
“ Online Group Psychotherapy for Addiction During Covid-19 ” is a research article by Leah Orme and Andre Geel and published in 2021 in the Open Access Journal of Addiction and Psychotherapy. It presents the results of a primary research study exploring the efficacy of using online group psychotherapy in providing effective addiction treatment. The study is conducted against the backdrop of the Covid-19 pandemic landscape, pointing to a shift towards remote and distance care provision for mental health issues. It points to the pandemic’s limitations, including limited physical contact and proximity. These limitations have hastened the evolution of healthcare delivery, with online care delivery being identified as a viable alternative to therapy attended physically. The research study revealed that 90% of persons who attended the online group psychotherapy for addiction sessions had full recovery and were determined as drug-free and alcohol-free at the end of the treatment program. In addition, the study reveals that 60% of the program attendees had significant improvements in the results for patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and generalized anxiety disorder 7-item questionnaire (GAD-7). Based on these results, it is clear that online group psychotherapy delivers effective addiction treatment (Orme & Geel, 2021).
PATIENT POPULATION
Psychotherapy for addiction.
Unable to attend therapy physically.
Covid-19 pandemic limitations.
The study is conducted among persons seeking psychotherapy for addiction but who are unable to attend the therapy sessions physically. As earlier indicated, the Covid-19 pandemic brought about unique challenges as public health measures were implemented to limit physical contact and proximity. The social distancing, along with the national lockdown, meant that options for delivering psychotherapy were similarly limited. Many therapies requiring physical attendance were suspended, especially those that may have involved groups of patients in a session. Consequently, the logical option was turning to online psychotherapy as a strategy for ensuring that persons with addiction could still attend therapy from a distance (Orme & Geel, 2021). While the restrictions from the Covid-19 pandemic have since been eased, there are many patients who may seek psychotherapy for addiction but are prevented owing to physical distance. Presenting evidence on and validating the effectiveness of online psychotherapy for addiction would help make available a convenient therapy option.
INTERVENTION
Online psychotherapy for addiction treatment.
Online formats, including video conferencing, email, text and telephone.
Internet-based communication tools.
Weekly group sessions.
12-weeks program.
The study explores the effectiveness of online psychotherapy for addiction treatment. In this case, the online psychotherapy model is delivered through a combination of online formats, including video conferencing, email, text, and telephone. The group interactions during psychotherapy are mediated using internet-based communication tools in the treatment setting. The online psychotherapy is delivered through weekly group sessions in which participants attend a sixty-minute meditation session by a trained psychotherapist once every week. The sessions are held from Monday to Friday for twelve weeks. Although online psychotherapy is not a new concept, the Covid-19 pandemic necessitated the study to present results on its effectiveness (Orme & Geel, 2021).
AUTHORS’ CLAIMS
Online psychotherapy is not a new concept.
Effective in treating anxiety, depression and alcohol abuse.
Computer technology is widely accepted and permeates everyday life.
Online psychotherapy saves time and money.
Orme and Geel claim that online psychotherapy is not a new concept. It has been successfully applied to effectively treat patients diagnosed with anxiety, depression and alcohol abuse. In addition, they claim that computer technology is widely accepted and permeates everyday life, thereby driving acceptance of online psychotherapy as an adjunct to physically delivered psychotherapy and also an independent alternative. Besides that, they claim that online psychotherapy has significant support from stakeholders because of unique advantages in saving time and money and allowing for more efficient use, such as a patient not spending time on the weekly commute to and from therapy sessions and simply logging in to the session (Orme & Geel, 2021).
FINDINGS
90% of participants passed drug-free and alcohol-free assessments.
60% of participants had improvements in health and anxiety outcomes.
Online group psychotherapy is effective in treating addiction.
Help maintain abstinence and develop psychological skills for recovery.
The study’s outcomes indicate that 90% of the participants passed the drug-free and alcohol-free assessments at the end of the 12-week online psychotherapy program, thereby indicating that it is effective. In addition, the study findings reveal that 60% of the participants had significant improvements in health and anxiety outcomes as per assessment with the patient health questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) and generalized anxiety disorder 7-item questionnaire (GAD-7). Based on the study’s findings, it is clear that online group psychotherapy is effective in treatment addiction by helping participants maintain abstinence and develop psychological skills to recover from addiction (Orme & Geel, 2021).
limitations
A small sample size of 20 participants.
No comparison group.
No results beyond the 12-week program.
The research study is well conducted to show that online psychotherapy is effective in treating addiction. However, three limitations in the research approach impact the ability to use these findings. First, only 20 participants were recruited for the study. This is a very small sample size when considering the large number of persons attending psychotherapy for addiction. The small sample size implies that the results may not be generalized for the whole population of persons attending psychotherapy for addiction. Extrapolating the results to the whole population is difficult, thus bringing into question the validity of the results (Hall & Roussel, 2022).
Second, the study does not include a comparison group. This makes it unclear how well online psychotherapy compares to other therapy approaches regarding effectiveness. Psychotherapy for addiction is typically conducted in sessions requiring the physical presence of participants in the same physical space. It would be more prudent to have a study that compares online psychotherapy against physical psychotherapy as this would prevent intervention and control groups that better frame and validate the research outcomes. Comparing only psychotherapy against other psychotherapy delivery models is vital for determining what differences exist in patient outcomes and whether the differences result from the delivery models or other influences (Schmidt & Brown, 2022).
Third, the research uses an online psychotherapy program for 12 weeks. The results are only reported for the research duration of 12 weeks, but not beyond that period. This makes it hard to determine if the intervention has any effects beyond the 12 weeks. Collecting results beyond the 12-week program period is important (Schmidt & Brown, 2022).
SUPPORTING SOURCES
Feijt et al. (2020)
Perspectives of mental health professionals.
A trend towards online therapy
Ierardi et al. (2020)
Online counselling is comparable to face-to-face counselling.
Davies et al. (2020)
Online therapy is accessible, flexible,and cheaper.
The findings from Orme and Geel indicate that online psychotherapy is an effective model. Other studies present comparable results. First, Feijt et al. (2020) explore the perspectives of mental healthcare practitioners delivering care using online platforms. The results indicate that the shift towards online psychotherapy is a trend, but it faces limiting challenges because of technological and usability problems and difficulty establishing rapport with clients. In addition, the study notes that while online psychotherapy may be effective for certain mental health conditions, it is not practical for all conditions. Still, the merits of online psychotherapy cannot be ignored as it is flexible, lowers the threshold for contact, and saves commute time and money.
Second, Ierardi et al. (2020) compare the performance of online and face-to-face psychodynamic counselling. The findings reveal that online counselling is comparable to face-to-face counselling as they have similar performance in reducing psychological distress scales of depression, obsessive-compulsive, interpersonal sensitivity, and anxiety. Although comparable, face-to-face counselling is considered more advantageous in moderating life satisfaction.
Third, Davies et al. (2020) present a systematic review of online therapy for treating a range of disorders, including depression and anxiety. The review notes that this trend is gaining traction because of the unique advantages offered by online therapy, including improved accessibility, flexibility, lack of mental health professionals to cover the need, and cost considerations. Online therapy can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection, easing the strain from a shortage of mental health professionals while cutting down on commute costs.
SCHOLARLY SOURCES
Experts and credentials.
Credible publishers.
Cite and references other sources.
Documented claims supported by evidence, and not biased.
The selected supporting sources are scholarly. They are written by experts on the subject with impressive credentials showing they are authorities on the subject. In addition, the sources are published by credible publishers whose publication protocols indicate all manuscripts are subjected to scrutiny before publication. Besides that, the sources cite and reference other sources, indicating that they synthesize information from other sources to build knowledge on the subject. Furthermore, the research makes claims that are well documented with a methodology showing the conclusions are based on the evidence presented and not biased (Hall & Roussel, 2022).
REFERENCES
Davies, F., Shepherd, H. L., Beatty, L., Clark, B., Butow, P., & Shaw, J. (2020). Implementing Web-Based Therapy in Routine Mental Health Care: Systematic Review of Health Professionals’ Perspectives. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22 (7), e17362. https://doi.org/10.2196/17362
Feijt, M., de Kort, Y., Bongers, I., Bierbooms, J., Westerink, J., & IJsselsteijn, W. (2020). Mental Health Care Goes Online: Practitioners’ Experiences of Providing Mental Health Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Cyberpsychology , Behavior, and Social Networking, 23 (12), 860-864. http://doi.org/10.1089/cyber.2020.0370
Hall, H. R., & Roussel, L. A. (2022). Evidence-Based Practice: An Integrative Approach to Research, Administration, and Practice (3rd ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC.
Ierardi, E., Bottini, M., & Crugnola, R. C. (2022). Effectiveness of an online versus face-to-face psychodynamic counselling intervention for university students before and during the COVID-19 period. BMC Psychology, 10 , Article number 35. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-022-00742-7
Orme, L., & Geel, A. C. (2021). Online Group Psychotherapy for Addiction During Covid-19. Open Access Journal of Addiction and Psychotherapy – OAJAP, 4 (3), 1-4. http://dx.doi.org/10.33552/OAJAP.2020.04.000588
Schmidt, N., & Brown, J. (2022). Evidence-Based Practice for Nurses: Appraisal and Application of Research (5th ed.). Jones & Bartlett Learning, LLC. Psychotherapy for Clients With Addictive Disorders
