Level 4: Relapse Prevention
YHA's Clinical Level 4 helps youth to understand and develop means and plans for preventing future behavioral problems, and especially behaviors that are destructive to themselves and others, include a relapse of sexually abusive behavior. This level helps youth understand the similarities and differences between behavior-management plans and relapse-prevention plans: the behavior plan is more general, and the relapse prevention plan aims at preventing a recurrence of dangerous behaviors. Therapists guide the youth through exploration of the ideas and elements of such plans, the rationale for safety planning, and the difference between making safety plans and actually using them. As experienced treatment professionals know, some variant of safety or relapse-prevention planning is basic to the treatment of juvenile sexually abusive behavior, yet many relapse-prevention plans are either poorly developed or simply go unused, for any number of reasons.
The Relapse Prevention level also revisits and builds upon the ideas of previous levels, and tests for retention and comprehension of ideas explored throughout former levels, as well as self-evaluation. Treatment assignments urge the youth, at this point in his/her treatment, to honestly appraise his prior sexually abusive or sexually inappropriate behavior.
Finally, this level helps the youth advance through treatment by discussing and distinguishing between types of relationships, ranging from close to more distant, noting clearly that many youth who experience difficulties in building relationships feel lonely and disconnected from others, including same-age peers. These youth want relationships, but often don't know how to build or keep them, and feel awkward and unsure of themselves. This issue is a central one for many of the youth we treat. Understanding relationships and the quality and meaning of these relationships is often the key in helping to understand the driving forces behind juvenile sexually abusive behavior. Relapse Prevention helps youth to understand the characteristics of healthy non-sexual and sexual relationships, types of sexual relationships, and links between relationship difficulties and sexually troubled behaviors.
Major Topics
Relapse Prevention
- Elements of a Behavior-Management Plan
- Relapse-Prevention Planning
- Steps in Relapse Prevention
- The Re-Offense Chain and High-Risk (Dangerous) Situations
- Breaking the Re-Offense Chain
- Getting Help
- Strengths and Goals
- Developing and Using Your Relapse Prevention Plan
Healthy Relationships
- Types of Relationships
- Understanding Healthy Relationships
- Intimate, Romantic, and Sexual Relationships
- Healthy and Unhealthy Relationships
- Growing Healthy Relationships
- Power and Control in Relationships
|