How does 12-Step facilitation of treatment relate to your personal theory of life? What parts could you integrate if desired?
Several of the tenants of the 12-step model are focused on self-reflection and self-improvement, which are both things that are very important to me and play a large part in my life philosophy. The following steps particularly speak to me in that they greatly coincide with how I try to live my life:
◦ 4. Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
◦ 5. Admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
◦ 8. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to make amends to them all.
◦ 9. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
◦ 10. Continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
Most of these simply have to do with being able to reflect on oneself and one’s actions and be able to admit mistakes and wrongdoings. I personally believe it is important to make amends when I have wronged someone. I tend to hold myself to high moral standards and of course I’m a human and make mistakes and even take the low road at times, but I believe that making amends is a crucial part of recovering from these moments. No one should have to carry around all of the guilt, shame, and regret from every mistake they’ve ever made. Making amends is part of the process of forgiveness—especially forgiving oneself.
How does 12-Step facilitation of treatment relate to your preferred counseling orientation? What parts do you see that you could utilize for treatment?
One of the things I really like about the 12-Step facilitation of treatment is that its main goal is to help people help themselves. It does not police people or sanction them, but simply offers information and support that an individual can use to make positive changes (and then pay forward to help others if they want to). I appreciate this mentality because it honors the individual who is not only responsible for their self, but also responsible for doing the hard work it takes to make a change.
The steps the resonated with me in my personal life similarly relate to my counseling approach. I think it is really imperative to help clients foster self-awareness in order to make positive change and find workable solutions to the issues that they are struggling with. Cognitive behavioral approaches rely on the client’s ability to become aware of their maladaptive thinking patterns in order to see how that is affecting their behavior and emotions in order to make changes. The ability to admit wrongdoings is similar to the ability to distinguish flaws in the way one is thinking or incongruence between behaviors and goals/values.
JHU Addictions: Reflective Blog 
Rachel,
I agree with you. I think that it is important for clients to foster a self-awareness in order to make positive changes in their life. This directly relates to cognitive behavioral approaches, and how the client works through their maladaptive behaviors and find the pattern in order for them to break it and replace the maladaptive with a positive behavior.
I also related to most of the same steps you related too. Being able to look inside at yourself and own up to any wrong doings takes a lot of courage for anyone to do. Making amends or being willing to make amends to past issues, is a way to move forward and give yourself closure to those past events; allowing us to work through the guilt, shame or embarrassment it might have caused.
Nicole