Strategies Series

by Claudia Black Ph. D. 

These tools are intended for use by clinicians, addiction counselors, and mental health care practitioners. It is the author’s hope they will become standards in the field – a source of reference for program development and an everyday part of clinical practice. Each book offers hands on practical strategies that can be used with individual clients or within a group, didactic information to be used in sessions, reproducible handouts, and specific instructions for assignments. The handouts are in the form of written exercises, checklists, sentence stems, structured dialogues and/or art activities and are an integral part of the therapeutic process. All handouts are designed for clinicians to reproduce and use without restriction as to copyright permission. Each book contains an audio CD that is a combination of relaxation and meditation visualizations.

Anger Strategies – for work with clients whose anger has become distorted and twisted and is conveyed in ways that create shame and blame causing difficulties in significant areas of their lives. These difficulties may range from how they view and feel about themselves, to parenting skills, partner relationships, performance in the workplace, legal issues and overall health. This workbook is composed of 7 sections with 42 sessions and the audio CD, "Imageries," offers structured meditations for recovery.

Depression Strategies – for work with clients experiencing depression, this book offers tools to intervene with faulty beliefs, negative cognitions, address loss and grief that fuel depression, and reinforce healthy behaviors. It also addresses the often neglected issue of one’s spirituality and the possibility of addiction and depression co-occurring.

This workbook is composed of 6 sections with 43 sessions and the audio CD, "Imageries," offers structured meditations for recovery.

Family Strategies – offers tools effectively used in primary family systems therapy when addiction is either active, or the addicted person is in early recovery. It shifts the perspective to the family system and family members as clients allowing for family members to recognize their part in the disorder and consequently recognize what their recovery entails. It can be used with spouses, partners, parents, and adolescent or adult age children. In many sessions it is appropriate to include the addicted person. This workbook is composed of 5 sections with 37 sessions and the audio CD "Letting Go Imageries" offers meditations on healing and recovery for anyone involved in a troubled family system.

Relapse Toolkit Strategies – for work with clients addressing the issue of relapse and relapse management and can be used for a wide range of addictive disorders including alcohol, drugs, sex, spending and gambling, work, food and relationship addictions. Relapse prevention is a significant aspect of the treatment and recovery process of addiction. This workbook provides a template for both the design and implementation of a relapse program and consists of 16 modules with 38 sessions and the audio CD Letting Go Imageries offers meditations to support specific modules.