What is expected of me as a patient? What is my role?: Primarily, I am expected to take an active role in my recovery, which means taking responsibility for my treatment and its various phases. It is not enough simply to attend psychotherapy sessions, take medication, or participate in activities while hospitalized.
Although every situation is different and it is difficult to generalize—for example, a person who comes in with serious health problems is not the same as someone who… depression and csubstance use. For another person who is at a different stage of motivation and in better health, the team will adapt the tasks and their difficulty levels to suit the patient’s life situation and progress.
When one asks what is expected of me as a patient and what role I play as an active agent in my own recovery, this involves conscious self-observation of the processes that perpetuate and sustain the use of toxic substances. It also involves taking active responsibility for relapse prevention (by following the instructions of the treating professionals) and being truthful, because without this last, extremely important point, both the patient and the professional team will waste valuable time when trying to help someone who is suffering.
In UniAdic, we work within the unified transdiagnostic model, incorporating Prochaska and DiClemente’s stages of motivation theory, among others, to tailor the intervention to the patient’s current stage of life. This model, widely used in scientific research on addiction, involves conducting interventions, asking questions, guiding, and modifying behaviors through psychotherapy with the patient, helping them change their cognitions and fostering greater responsibility for their recovery.
