Creating Change: A Past-Focused Treatment for Trauma and Addiction

This flexible, evidence-based manual offers counselors a gentle, compassionate approach to help people with trauma, addiction, or both explore their past. Creating Change guides clients to understand how trauma and addiction arose over time, grieve losses and regrets, create a new perspective on their life story, and take pride in their survival. The manual has 23 topics that can be implemented in any order with individuals or groups. Topics include Relationship Patterns, Break the Silence, Deepen Your Story, Darkness and Light, Emotions and Healing, and Influences: Family, Community, Culture. Creating Change can be implemented with any other treatment, including the author’s present-focused model, Seeking Safety. The book has a convenient large-size format and includes 70 reproducible handouts, many of which can be downloaded and printed at the companion website. See also Seeking Safety: A Treatment Manual for PTSD and Substance Abuse, and the self-help guide Finding Your Best Self, Revised Edition: Recovery from Addiction, Trauma, or Both, an ideal client recommendation.