Documenti di Didattica
Documenti di Professioni
Documenti di Cultura
TREATMENT OF
SUBSTANCE USE
DISORDERS
Practice Committee Consensus Report
April 2013
Core Therapeutic
Elements and
Their
Relationship to
Effectiveness
Executive Summary
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires coverage of substance use disorder (SUD) care, identifying
SUD services as one of the laws Essential Health Benefits (EHB). As more discretion has been given
by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to states to define the EHB, it will be most
important to work at the state level to ensure that individuals with mental illness and substance use
disorders receive quality care within a full continuum of evidenced-based care.
Addiction is a chronic health condition and can be successfully managed over time like other chronic
conditions. Residential treatment is a more intense service within the continuum of care with levels
responsive to the conditions of the patient.
The described core elements and therapeutic processes presented in this paper, together with the
Patient Placement Criteria developed by the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) are the
basis of the following description of residential treatment:
Residential Treatment is a normative, pervasive environment supporting a 24 hour-per-day
culture and milieu of beliefs and ideology, which value respect for the inherent goodness of the
individual, the capacity to change, personal responsibility, and the reliance on the treatment
community as a therapeutic agent.
Core Elements
1. Structure and stability
2. Safety and separateness
3. Therapeutic conditions and processes
Central to the continuing evolution of residential treatment is a commitment to the principles of selfmanagement of a chronic health condition. Within the normative pervasive environment of the
residential setting the community is a therapeutic agent where patients are empowered to manage
their health. Disease control and outcomes depend on patients using effective self-management.
Support includes acknowledging the patients' role in their care, fostering a sense of responsibility for
their health, using proven programs that provide emotional support and strategies for living with
chronic illness. Providers and patients work collaboratively to define barriers, set priorities, establish
goals, create treatment plans, and solve problems. Goals include sustaining abstinence, preparing for
triggers, improving personal health and social functioning, and engaging in continuing care.
Conclusions
1. The effectiveness of residential treatment is embedded in how the core elements of this safe,
separate, secure, and stable environment respond to the needs of individuals with deficits in
cognitive, social, interpersonal, emotional, and/or coping skills.
2. These individuals come from environments that are unstable, chaotic, abusive, and/or toxic,
and need a regimented, supportive, stable environment to habilitate or rehabilitate.
3. Individuals with more severe dysfunctions exhibit impulsivity, deficient anger management,
hostile/violent acting out, and/or resistance/antagonism to limits. They need an
environment which manifests respect, capacity to change, and personal responsibility within a
communal setting. The communal setting represents a microcosmic representation of the
larger society and provides the social context to alter thinking, feelings, and behaviors.
4. Treatment interventions are matched to a persons readiness to change and it is critical that
this individualized treatment matching occurs to assure that residential treatment is not
under-utilized or over-utilized.
1
levels of intensity responsive to the conditions of the patient. The report will also strongly urge the
field to arrive at a consensus in which there is a standardization of the levels of care which balance:
the need to individualize care to the needs, strengths, severity of brain dysregulation and
resulting functional deficits of the individual, their status within the progression and/or
remission of the chronic conditions
the matched intensity and frequency of the essential care services and structured
activities (the dosage)
the required credentials and ratio of staff to the patient population.
The confirmation of evidenced based practices of the core services and the balanced standardization
of the levels of care are necessary to support a reasoned and consistent payment structure.
Core Elements
Structure and stability are supported by an environment which includes the following major
characteristics:
Daily regimen of scheduled and structured activities:
Group therapy
Reflective time
Individual therapy
Community meetings
Didactics
Recreational/physical activities
Meals
Defined policies, procedures and clinical protocols
Specified roles for staff, residents, and family members
Predictable times to practice recovery and coping skills
Safety and separateness are supported by an environment which provides:
Safety from:
Alcohol and other drugs
Dominant drug culture
Drug places
Chaos
Safety to:
Practice recovery and coping skills
Controlled experiential community environment separate from larger society and from the
drug using culture to which many patients belong
Microcosmic representation of a larger society providing a social and interactive context
to alter thinking, feelings, and behaviors
4
Therapeutic conditions and processes that occur within the residential environment that seem to
correlate to its effectiveness include:
Structures and regimens that support a recovery environment and related behaviors and skills
Sufficient stability to prevent and minimize relapse
Treatment and community structure to practice and integrate recovery and coping skills
Community and treatment settings built upon residents imitative tendencies to learn through
reciprocal role modeling by both peers and staff
An environment built upon the social nature of persons
Encouragement of progress which is dependent on reciprocal interaction in a safe and
separate community setting
A separate community as a means of personal, and in some cases spiritual, transformation
which requires a shift from the self-centeredness of ones personal identity, which is
characterized by addiction thinking, feeling, and behaving, to letting go to a power
greater than oneself
Healing not in isolation, but in communion with others
The above core elements and therapeutic processes lead the committee to the
following description of residential treatment:
Residential Treatment is a normative, pervasive environment supporting
a 24 hour-per-day culture and milieu of beliefs and ideology, which value
respect for the inherent goodness of the individual, the capacity to
change, personal responsibility, and the reliance on the treatment
community as a therapeutic agent. 6
Conclusions
5. The effectiveness of residential treatment for both adults and adolescents is embedded in
how the very characteristics of core elements of this safe, separate, secure, and stable
environment respond to the needs of individuals with significant functional deficits in their
cognitive, social and interpersonal, and emotional functioning and coping functions. The
functional deficits are identified by ASAM Patient Placement Criteria.
6. These individuals more often come from environments that are unstable, chaotic, abusive and
toxic, and therefore they need a regimented, supportive, stable environment in which to learn
and practice through interventions that habilitate or rehabilitate.
7. Individuals with more severe dysfunctions often exhibit impulsivity, deficient anger
management, hostile and violent acting out, and resistance and antagonism to limits.
These individuals need a normative, pervasive environment which manifests respect, the
capacity to change and personal responsibility within a communal setting. It is this communal
setting that represents a microcosmic representation of the larger society that provides the
social context to alter thinking, feelings, and behaviors.
8. Treatment interventions are matched to a persons readiness to change and it is critical that
this individualized treatment matching occurs to assure that residential treatment is not
underutilized or over utilized.
This is consistent with The Six Aims of High-Quality Health Care from the Institute of Medicine:
Safe - avoiding injuries to patients from the care that is intended to help them.
Effective - providing services based on scientific knowledge to all who could benefit and
refraining from providing services to those not likely to benefit (avoiding underuse and
overuse, respectively).
Patient-centered - providing care that is respectful of and responsive to individual patient
preferences, needs, and values and ensuring that patient values guide all clinical decisions.
Timely - reducing waits and sometimes harmful delays for both those who receive and those
who give care.
Efficient - avoiding waste, including waste of equipment, supplies, ideas, and energy.
Equitable - providing care that does not vary in quality because of personal characteristics
such as gender, ethnicity, geographic location, and socioeconomic status.
IOM, 2001:56.
The duration of care is dependent on the individual progress and any of the following needs of the
patient:
Effective treatment
attends to multiple needs
of the individual, not just
his or her drug abuse. To
be effective, treatment
must address the
individual's drug abuse
and any associated
medical, psychological,
social, vocational, and
legal problems. It is also
important that treatment
be appropriate to the
individual's age, gender,
ethnicity, and culture.
None of the findings of this report are new. They do however strongly support why residential
treatment is effective for those who have more severe functional deficits and require a safe and
secure environment in which to learn and practice recovery skills.
There is strong evidence that treatment within this level of care can be individualized to the needs,
strengths, social supports systems and recovery progress of the patient.
Appendix
Bibliography
ASAM Placement Criteria and Matching Patients to Treatment. (2010) David Mee-Lee, MD and Gerald
D. Shulman MA, MAC, FACATA(ASAM, Principles of Addiction Medicine, Chapter 27).
DeLeon , G., Recent Research Into Therapeutic Communities, , Principles of Addiction Medicine, 3rd
edition, (2003), Chevy Chase, Maryland: American Society of Addiction Medicine.
Drug and Alcohol Service Providers Organization of Pennsylvania, Legal Brief: Inpatient Non-Hospital
Addiction Treatment and the Affordable Care Act, Heller, G. December 2011.
Garnick, D.W., Horgan, C., Acevedo, A., McCorry, F., and Weis-ner, C. Performance Measures for
Substance Use Disorders What Research is Needed? Addiction Science and Clinical Prac-tice. (2012).
Published online at http://www.ascpjournal.org/content/7/1/18/abstract
Institute of Medicine (2006), Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use
Condition: Quality Chasm Series. Washington DC: National Academy Press.
Kurth, D.J., Therapeutic Communities, Features of a Modern Therapeutic Community, Principles of
Addiction Medicine, 3rd edition, (2003), Chevy Chase, Maryland: American Society of Addiction
Medicine.
McLellan A.T., McKay, J.R. (2009). Evidenced Based Clinical Practices Within and Across Continuum of
Addiction Treatment (ASAM Principles of Addiction Medicine, Chapter 25).
Mee-Lee D, Shulman, G.D., Fishaman, M, et al., ASAM Patient Placement criteria for the Treatment of
Substance Use Disorders, 2nd Edition-revised (ASAM PPC-2R). (2001) Chevy Chase Maryland: American
Society of Addiction Medicine.
NIDA: Principles of Effective Treatment, NIH Pub Number: 12-4180
Published: October 1999, Revised: December 2012
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/principles-drug-addiction-treatment
OBrien, W.B., Perfas, F.B., The Therapeutic Community, Lowinson, J. H., Ruiz, P., Millman, R. B., and
Langrod, J. C. (Eds.). (2004). Substance Abuse: A comprehensive textbook. Baltimore, MD: Lippincott
Williams & Wilkins.
Reif, S., Horgan, C.M., Quinnn, A.E., Granick, D.W., Hodgkin, D. Adult Residential Treatment for
Substance Use Disorders: Summary of the Evidence, (2010) Brandeis University.
S. B. Sells & D. D. Simpson (Eds.). (1976). The Effectiveness of Drug Abuse Treatment: Vols. 3-5.
Cambridge, MA: Ballinger.
S. B. Sells & D. D. Simpson, The Case for Drug Abuse Treatment Effectiveness, Based on the DARP
Research Program, British journal of Addiction 75 (1980) 117-131.
SAMSHA, Models of Adult Residential Substance use Disorder Treatment, 2010 (Paper prepared as
summary of Adult Residential Treatment Expert Panel Convened in August 2010).
SAMSHA. OBrien J (Draft 2010): Description of a Good and Modern Addiction and Mental Health
Service System which can be accessed at the following website:
http://www.samhsa.gov/healthReform/docs/good_and_modern_12_20_2010_508.pdf
Simpson, D.D., Sells, S.B., Effectiveness of Treatment for Drug Abuse: An Overview of the DARP
Research Program, Advances in Alcohol and substance Abuse, (1982).
Willenbring MD. (2009) Spectrum of Alcohol Use Disorders Continuum of Care (ASAM, Principles of
Addiction Medicine, Chapter 23).
Committee Members
Michael Reagan, Chair, Chief External Relations Officer, Cherry Street Health Services, MI
Susan Blacksher, MSW, MCA, Executive Director CA Association of Addiction Recovery Resources
Charles Bush, Program Manager, Clearview Recovery Center, MS
Cinda Cash, former Executive Director, Connecticut Women's Consortium, Inc.
John Coppola, MSW, Executive Director, NY Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers, Inc.
John Daigle, Consultant, FL
Dick Dillon, CEO, Innovaision, LLC, MO
Sheila North, M.A., M.F.T., Executive Director, DePaul Treatment Centers, OR
Constance Peters, MSPA, VP for Addiction Services, Association for Behavioral Health MA
Art Schut, CEO, Arapahoe House Inc., CO
Bill Stauffer, LSW, CADC, Executive Director, PRO-A, PA
11