Substance use recovery / SUR-A02-4
Reasons for Change and Ambivalence — Session activity
Facilitate a structured practice of reasons for change and ambivalence with preparation, reflection, and an agreed closing.
30 minutes · Session guide · Mental health professionals
Fictional example: Jordan wants fewer consequences and worries about losing a familiar coping strategy.
Use within your training and assessment of readiness. Mixed feelings can be explored without demanding readiness.
0–5 min | Agree on purpose and fit
Explain the educational scope. Ask what would be useful, check readiness and access needs, and establish choices to observe, adapt, or pass. Use an ordinary example; do not solicit trauma narratives.
5–10 min | Orient with an example
Mixed feelings can be explored without demanding readiness. Fictional example: Jordan wants fewer consequences and worries about losing a familiar coping strategy. Ask what is observed and what remains uncertain.
10–20 min | Practice and compare
Place reasons to change, reasons to hesitate, and needed supports in separate columns. Offer quiet individual work, a supported conversation, or an observing role. Compare two possible responses without evaluating people as right or wrong.
20–25 min | Reflect on meaning
What deserves understanding before a next step is chosen? Ask what fit, what did not fit, and how culture, power, disability access, or external conditions affect the options.
25–30 min | Integrate and close
Invite one optional next step or support request. Orient to the current setting, allow an unfinished question to remain unfinished, and agree how to revisit it. End early or adapt if activation increases.
Adaptations
For a group, use fiction and no compulsory round-robin disclosure. For remote use, allow off-camera reflection and private notes. For brief use, keep one example and one question while retaining opening and closing choices.
Prompts for this resource
- What outcome would make this practice useful?
- What deserves understanding before a next step is chosen?
- What adaptation or follow-up is needed?
Conceptual background
Substance Use Disorders — National Institutes of Health
Background on the approach only. Original exercises and wording are by More Than Therapy with AI assistance; the source does not validate or endorse these materials.