Intervention: Reducing Compassion Fatigue: About to Give up on Someone Who Needs Help?

By Al Jameson

This book is designed to help religious leaders, professional counselors, concerned family members, and individuals offer viable, appropriate levels of care to someone with an addiction problem, one who refuses to accept assisted-living conditions or comply with medical advice. Using tools in this book can increase awareness of the issue and acceptance of recovery.

Learn how to avoid compassion fatigue while using healthy personal boundaries. Because these tools are likely used in an emotional setting, the least emotionally involved helper or leader is the best person for attempting an organized intervention. Concerned others may be able to find serenity after going through this process.

This book teaches a mini-intervention or one-on-one short meeting as a setup for a full-blown maxi-intervention later, if necessary. If the maxi-intervention is not successful at first, next steps and consequences are taught. These steps are in keeping with Jesus instructions on how to approach someone with an issue.

This book compiles thirty-nine years of studying and experience of achieving compliance with the best of care for someone refusing help with a serious issue. In using these steps and illustrations, 90 percent of the full maxi-interventions result in beginning the first stages of treatment or recovery.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Jul 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781449759537

Al Jameson

Al Jameson and his wife, Judy, live in Fort Worth, Texas. Al has a master's degree and is a licensed professional counselor and a licensed chemical dependency counselor.  Al has conducted more than eight hundred family interventions since 1973 and has a private counseling practice for over twenty years.  He has master’s-level training in conflict resolution from Pepperdine University and Abilene Christian University. Conferences from Texas to New York to Saudi Arabia have asked him to speak. He is currently working in an assignment for the Department of Defense serving military members and their families.  [e-mail]

Book preview

INTERVENTION:

REDUCING COMPASSION FATIGUE

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About to give up on someone who needs help?

Al Jameson,

Licensed Professional Counselor,

Licensed Chemical Dependency Counselor

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Copyright © 2012 Al Jameson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5952-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5953-7 (e)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-5954-4 (hc)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912567

WestBow Press books may be ordered through booksellers or by contacting:

WestBow Press

A Division of Thomas Nelson

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.westbowpress.com

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Quotations designated (NIV) are from THE HOLY BIBLE: NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. NIV®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.

Quotations designated (NIRV) are from the Holy Bible, New International Reader’s Version® Copyright © 1995, 1996, 1998 by Biblica. All rights reserved worldwide.

WestBow Press rev. date: 07/17/2012

Contents

INTRODUCTION

Chapter 1    Do We Need to Confront?

Chapter 2    Are You the Best One to Confront?

Chapter 3    Family Examples

Chapter 4    Serenity Triangle

Chapter 5    Healthy Boundaries

Chapter 6    Define the Problem

Chapter 7    The Pain of Change

Chapter 8    Taking a Roller Coaster Ride

Chapter 9    Preparing for a Maxi-intervention

Chapter 10    Interruptions

Chapter 11    Roadblocks to Success and Serenity

Chapter 12    Legal Fears

Chapter 13    Intervention Participants

Chapter 14    Mini-interventions

Chapter 15    After Agreeing to Accept Help

Chapter 16    Early Days of Treatment

Chapter 17    Continuing Care

Conclusion

Appendix

About the Author

intervention

REDUCES

COMPASSION

FATIGUE

A practical, step-by-step guide

discussing the dance or process

of asking a troubled

acquaintance

to accept direly needed

assistance.

Need help to confront?

Confrontation is your friend

and

is the friend of the one you love!

Serenity is not the absence of

confrontation!

Serenity is dealing with

confrontation

effectively, without compassion fatigue, efficiently and respectfully.

Serenity is the opposite of

compulsivity.

INTRODUCTION

Dear Reader,

This book is designed to help religious leaders, professional counselors, concerned family members, and individuals offer viable appropriate levels of care to someone with an addiction problem or a person who refuses to accept assisted living conditions or comply with medical advice. Use the tools in this book to increase the awareness of the issue and acceptance of recovery.

Learn how to avoid compassion fatigue while using healthy personal boundaries. Because these tools are likely used in an emotional setting, the least emotionally involved helper or leader is the best person for attempting an organized intervention. When that less emotionally involved person is not available, a family member may choose to use this material and know they have attempted to offer choices. The family members will be able to find serenity after going through this process.

This book teaches a mini-intervention or one-on-one short meeting as a setup for a full-blown maxi-intervention later, if necessary. If the maxi-intervention is not successful at first, next steps and consequences are taught. These steps are in keeping with Jesus’ instructions on how to approach someone with an issue.

This book compiles thirty-nine years of studying and experience of achieving compliance with the best of care for someone refusing help with a serious issue. I have led over 800 family interventions. In using these steps and illustrations, 90 percent of the full maxi-interventions result in beginning the first stages of treatment or recovery. If you or I learn of a more effective approach to a reluctant person with a problem, please let us share. This is simply where I am today on the journey of learning and serving.

Al Jameson, LPC, LCDC

Chapter 1

Do We Need to Confront?

Do you want to help someone with a serious problem who does not want help? He/she either does not realize there is any problem or is refusing to seek viable, available appropriate solutions.

Rather than using he/she or your loved one, allow me to simply refer to them as Addie and he. I will say problem to refer to gambling, workaholic concerns, sexual issues, video game obsession, or other damaging excesses. Addie could be a loved one with a religious cult control conflict, or he may have a problem with chemical abuse, including alcohol or any other mind-altering substance, addictions, mental disorder, or noncompliance with medication or medical advice. An intervention also works for an elderly person who refuses to accept a higher level of healthcare, such as assisted living, not taking necessary medication, declining medical attention, or any other perceived problem.

I’ve helped church leaders gather groups to confront a church member with a spiritual issue, such as compulsive lying or writing hate mail. This is the third step of Jesus’ instructions in Matthew 18 to retrieve someone with a problem. Even in a secular setting, I insist on knowing when the prospect needing help was approached one-on-one before I participate in a group confrontation or intervention.

You may be the only one thinking this is a problem. You and/or others may have tried to approach this person to no avail. If you absolutely cannot engage others to join in an intervention, then this is not the correct approach. I will suggest other approaches later. Addie probably assumed a position to resist all changes. This background can affect all relationships: professional, church, and personal. This material will help you decide if a confrontation is needed and to adopt a better strategy in the myriad dances, processes, or negotiations that happen in the days before and after an intervention. This is really an issue of conflict resolution.

Why Consider an Intervention as Respect and Concern for the One You Love?

Common Core Issues from Concerned Others and Addie

SELF-TEST: Use the following questions to determine if you are enabling or participating in an out-of-control person’s death or if you desire to look into an intervention.

Chapter 2

Are You the Best One to Confront?

Most family groups ask me, "Don’t you feel guilty encouraging us to talk behind his back? I feel like we are gossiping, meddling, ganging up, and conspiring against our loved one. This does not feel like decent activity for a moral family."

Often a group member will say, You see, we are Christians, and doing this does not seem Christian. This is a common, expected feeling. I felt the same the first time I was invited to help with a friend’s intervention in 1973. I didn’t show up at the second