ABSTRACT

This chapter focuses on applying the liberation health approach to work with people struggling with addictive behavior issues. The clinical work presented here was set in a for-profit outpatient mental health clinic in a diverse urban neighborhood. This clinic houses many different programs, including an outpatient addictions treatment program. Addiction issues in the society can be viewed as symptoms of much larger, systemic problems and the continual effects of these systemic problems on people and community groups. The dominant cultural world view dictates that addiction issues be seen as personal problems. Negative dominant cultural messages, stereotypes and judgments about addicts are pervasive in our society. In the traditional medical model of treatment, most often guiding substance abuse treatment programs, the addiction, the problem, is always located within the individual. Classism, the cultural and institutional discrimination and oppression of the poor and working class, is a major theme and crucial factor in the case presented here.