Treatment Approaches - Essay Example

Treatment Approaches Treatment Approaches – Harm Reduction Model Harm reduction is an approach consisting of strategies and methods that help a person to overcome or reduce some of its dangerous behaviors, such as taking drugs or over drinking of alcohol that not only leads to harm the individual and threatens community as well. Harm reduction, in simpler terms, works on the principle of convincing people to take small steps towards betterment instead of leaping for big change all of a sudden.

This approach does not focuses on forcing an individual to get rid of addictive behavior all of a sudden, instead, this approach focuses on minimizing the bad behavior initially, and with the passage of time, having complete control over that particular behavior and getting rid of it (Denning et al., 2004). It is far easier to make people realize that using seat belts while driving can prevent many damages during an accident instead of eliminating the complete auto mobile industry to overcome damages in road accidents.

Harm Reduction Approach vs. Disease Model Approach:The harm reduction approach mainly focuses on reducing the hazardous behavior of an individual that might cause harm to him/her and to the society in general. While disease model looks upon such behaviors with a different perspective. According to disease model, people addictive to drugs or alcohol are treated as chronically diseased and can get relief either by continuing to use the addictive drugs which in turn deteriorate their health, or by practicing self-restraint to abstain the addiction once and for all (Van and Davis, 2012).

Hence, the objective of both the approaches is same i.e. curing addiction, but the method of analyzing the patient and its treatment is different. Examples for Utilizing Harm Reduction ApproachIn order to have an effective results of harm reduction approach on patients, following are some examples or methods that should be adopted:Legalizing Drugs: The government should realize that the people who are addictive to alcoholism and to other drugs will not leave them even if they are forced to do so, therefore, in an organized manner, these drugs should be made available to such addictive people in specific institutes where they will not only be monitored but will also be helped in getting over their damaging behavior.

Safe Drinking: An individual with drinking problems not only put themselves in harm’s way by losing control which eventually leads to hazardous accidents involving others as well. Therefore, the best solution to control and overcome such situations is to drink in presence of a company. In this way, the results of drinking on an individual as well as on his surroundings can be controlled by those present around the drinkers.Reduced Drinking: The best way to get rid of addictive habits is by taking baby steps to attain positive results.

If an individual drinks twice a day, the baby step towards the elimination of such habit will be to restrict the drinking to once a day. Later continue this practice and try to drink on alternative days. This will help in getting rid of addiction with more positive results.Take Your Vitamins: Taking drugs and drinking causes loss of vitamins within body. Take your vitamins as prescribed by the doctor on time so that you may not have any deficiency of vitamins in your body. How to Evaluate the Plan: To evaluate the effectiveness of the methods is by monitoring the patient’s progress regarding his addictive behaviors.

If the addiction is reduced then the applied methods and strategies are working progressively and will eventually help the patient in eradicating the addictive habit. ReferenceDenning, P., Little, J., & Glickman, A. (2004). Over the influence: The harm reduction guide for managing drugs and alcohol. New York: Guilford Press.Van, W. K. S., and Davis, D. R. (2012). Addiction treatment: a strengths perspective. Belmont, CA: Brooks/Cole Pub. Co.