Abstract
What is so significant about this volume is that the disease model is nowhere to be seen. We now have the collective confidence to develop a genuinely alternative way of thinking about change in the addictive behaviors, and it is as a contribution toward the development of this new thinking that this chapter is directed. I will begin by outlining six conclusions that I draw from what has been written about change. Not all of these conclusions are comfortable to live with for those of us who see ourselves as specialist or expert treaters of addictive behaviors, but each has to be accommodated in any new model of change we care to develop. I will then make some remarks about the directions in which I believe we should look for ideas with which to build our new models of change. I will attempt to make the point that we are in danger of reinventing the wheel; a basic understanding of how those with addictive behaviors do change has been with us for a long time. Finally, I will briefly speak of some of the implications for practice of our new ways of understanding how those troubled by addictive behaviors make changes. Whether we care to admit it or not, most of us practice within a quasi-medical format, and I am not sure whether we have yet faced up to the need for changes in our own ways of working that new models suggest.
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© 1986 Plenum Press, New York
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Orford, J. (1986). Critical Conditions for Change in the Addictive Behaviors. In: Miller, W.R., Heather, N. (eds) Treating Addictive Behaviors. Applied Clinical Psychology, vol 13. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4613-2191-0_5
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