REVIEW: Larry Fritzlan/Avis Rumney — Addiction Therapy and Treatment (BOOK)
Larry Fritzlan, LMFT and Avis Rumney, LMFT have published their new book, titled Addiction Therapy and Treatment: A Systems Approach. As the title suggests, the book is a stepping stone path and therapeutic guide to beating addiction in a manner that is postmodernly informed, statistically-backed, and most importantly empathetic and compassionate to those most afflicted. “Addiction is a national mental health crisis, responsible for untold costs to our society and immense suffering to innumerable people.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: https://www.larryfritzlan.com/about-us/
As I write this book, addiction treatment providers are failing to reach the vast majority of those who suffer from addiction. The stark reality is that fifty percent of those who receive addiction treatment fail to sustain recovery after treatment,” Fritzlan and Rumney state. “…I believe that a new and different approach is essential. And, after 25 years of successfully treating addicted families, by which I mean that most addicts and their families sustain their recovery after treatment, I know for a fact that this approach works significantly better than the model that currently is generally accepted and widely practiced. In this book, I propose a radically different approach to the current addiction treatment paradigm.
Specifically, I suggest organizing treatment around a single professional — a state-licensed, mental or medical health professional trained in Family Recovery Therapy (FRT) — who acts as a Treatment Team Manager and coordinates, case manages, oversees, and treats the members of the addicted/codependent system in an integrated continuum of care, from the first phone call through at least the first year of continuous sobriety.”
Seems simple, doesn’t it? Like any solid piece of nonfiction in the mental health and self-help categories, Addiction Therapy and Treatment is able to zero in on a concept, or conceptual articulation which feels painfully obvious even if it was frequently overlooked prior to. Fritzlan and Rumney write with an appropriate urgency, yet never at the expense of a warm, precise, and confident tonality reassuring to the book’s target audiences. One gets the sense from the style of their writing that their convictions here aren’t just professionally assured, they’re personal.
AMAZON: https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Therapy-Treatment-Systems-Approach/dp/1476688141
There’s a profound sensitivity in what they write, and for the aspiring therapist this proves crucial. “My hope is that you, the practitioner who is interested in studying and treating addiction, will find that adopting this new model can help you achieve more successful outcomes with your clients, and that families contending with addiction will find a clear road map with this approach to help them navigate the dizzying array of treatments and interventions offered in the largely unregulated American addiction treatment industry,” Fritzlan and Rumney write. “…my hope is that you, the family member who is concerned about an addicted loved one, will find solace in the knowledge that there is a path toward sustained recovery for you and your family, and that there are now practitioners who can help to guide you in that process…
This book is addressed both to professionals in the addiction treatment field and to the addicts and their families being treated by these professionals. It is vital that family members — who comprise the addictive/codependent family system — fully understand the rationale supporting these treatment recommendations.”
Colin Jordan
