{"id":661,"date":"2025-04-27T16:54:23","date_gmt":"2025-04-27T13:54:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.netosdimitris.gr\/2025\/04\/27\/addiction-recovery-and-relapse-punishment-or-a-challenge-for-new-insights\/"},"modified":"2026-05-19T12:54:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T09:54:18","slug":"addiction-recovery-and-relapse-punishment-or-a-challenge-for-new-insights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/netosdimitris.gr\/en\/addiction-recovery-and-relapse-punishment-or-a-challenge-for-new-insights\/","title":{"rendered":"Addiction Recovery and Relapse: Punishment or a Challenge for New Insights?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Often, dominant models of thought in modern psychology adopt a negative\u2014bordering on punitive\u2014stance towards relapse<\/strong>, or the return of problematic substance use or behavior. Narrative therapy<\/a> approaches this return as an opportunity for further exploration and new insights. <\/p>\n\n

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According to narrative therapy, the process of recovery constitutes a shift from a familiar part of an individual’s identity\u2014that of substance use\u2014to an unfamiliar and unknown part\u2014that of recovery or negotiation. This process is non-linear and is therefore characterized by multiple discontinuities and emotional ups and downs. <\/p>\n\n

Viewing recovery itself as a non-linear process paves the way for recognizing difficulties, obstacles, and even the return of problematic substance use or behavior in an individual’s life, without assigning moral judgments or the feeling that the individual made a mistake and disappointed the therapist and\/or loved ones, and certainly without the feeling that the individual is starting their effort again from scratch.<\/p>\n\n

In narrative therapy, every process of change is characterized by 3 stages: the stage of separation, the liminal stage, and the stage of integration. If we apply the stages of change to the example of addictions, we have the following analogies: <\/p>\n\n

1) Stage of separation:<\/strong> When the individual decides to separate from a problematic substance or behavior.<\/p>\n\n

2) Liminal stage:<\/strong> This stage occupies the largest part of the recovery process. During this stage, the prevailing feelings in the individual are confusion and ambivalence, as they are caught between two worlds. <\/p>\n\n

An old, familiar, and often problematic world, that of substance use, and a new one, that of recovery, which the individual can still only imagine. This stage involves a continuous alternation of negative and positive emotions, which gradually occupy an increasingly larger space in the individual’s psyche. <\/p>\n\n

3) Stage of integration:<\/strong> The individual has left behind the ambivalence of the previous stage and is in a safe place for their identity.<\/p>\n\n

Returning to the example of therapy, therapist and client adopt a collaborative stance where they attempt to map the context, allies, conditions, and specific circumstances of the problem’s return, which occurs during the liminal stage.<\/p>\n\n

Some of the questions guiding these types of discussions are:<\/p>\n\n

-How did the problem manage to return to your life?<\/p>\n\n

-Who were the allies and what were the specific circumstances of this return?<\/p>\n\n

-If we could turn back time, how could you have avoided it?<\/p>\n\n

-If you use this experience as an opportunity for new insights and not as an opportunity for self-flagellation, what would you like to retain? What new understanding did you gain about the problem that you didn’t know until it returned? <\/p>\n\n

-How could we incorporate these new insights into our therapy plan?<\/p>\n\n