Tag: Screening and Assessment

Creation of the SASSI & Fine-tuning of the SASSI

To understand the SASSI, you need to understand how the subtle items were selected.  Dr. Glenn A. Miller considered several thousand potential items. First, he excluded items that reflected either general maladjustment or, conversely, obvious social desirability. He gave questionnaires containing potential items to both individuals in treatment for substance use and to control subjects. Then he looked for items that the members of one group usually answered differently from the members of the other. Although no single question could identify every person who had a substance use disorder, statistical analyses detected a set of questions that people with substance use disorders consistently answer differently than other people.

The only reason any question was included was that it worked to identify substance use disorders, not that it seemed to be related to substance misuse.

Dr. Miller did not base the SASSI upon a theory of substance use disorders, but rather used statistical analyses to empirically select those items that distinguished between known criterion groups of individuals with and without the disorder. For the purposes of screening, we do not need to understand why people with substance use disorders are more likely than other people to answer True to “I have been tempted to leave home.” What matters is that responses to this question can help us identify people who are likely to need further evaluation for a substance use problem. Research has shown that people who answer the questions similarly to people with substance use disorders have a relatively high probability of having a substance use disorder.

To further deal with the resistance that so often characterizes substance use disorders, individuals with known substance use disorders were asked to answer the questionnaire as if they were applying for an important group membership and were directed to try to hide signs of their shortcomings and problems, particularly those related to the misuse of alcohol and drugs. Analyses of answers given under these “fake good” instructions identified two types of items — those items that distinguished people who had substance use disorders from people without such disorders even when people were instructed to conceal problems, as well as items that helped identify defensive responding.

Statistical analyses revealed that the SASSI could most accurately and usefully identify individuals with substance use disorders if the items were compiled into scales, and decision rules were created for analyzing the scores.

Items were tested with various groups and selected to minimize the effects of gender, age, socio-economic status, ethnicity, and drug of choice.

Extracted from:

Lazowski, L. E., Kimmell, K.S., & Baker, S.L. (2016). The Adult Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory-4 (SASSI-4) User Guide & Manual. Springville, IN: The SASSI Institute.

Foundational Story Psychotherapy Webinar

We are happy to announce the next in our line of Professional Development webinars: Foundational Story Psychotherapy: Understanding and Co-Changing Clients’ Stories (Part 1) presented by Dr. Hugh Marr. Below is additional information on this workshop:

We humans are narrative creatures. Much of our communication, our cognition, our memory, and even our understanding of our self is storied. By late adolescence virtually all of us have developed a life story, a story that helps determine what we expect from others, in which settings we are most comfortable, how we treat ourselves and what we can hope for. Our life story is comprised of smaller vignettes or foundational stories. As a result, the coin of psychotherapy is narrative, and clients tell an average of 4.1 stories in each session.

Despite the ubiquity of narrative, most of us receive very little education in the structure of narrative and its application to substance abuse and mental health counseling. Given our narrative bones, all therapies must deal with narrative, although most of them do so implicitly, focusing on only a limited number of aspects of story.

In this workshop, we will examine the narrative underpinnings of substance abuse counseling and psychotherapy; and we will broaden our understanding and use of different approaches to alter both foundational and life narratives. We will look at the special impact of trauma on clients’ life stories and the resultant substance abuse and emotional struggles. Participants will come away with greater ease and more tools to understand and help clients change the problematic stories they live.

This workshop is designed to enable participants to:

  • Define foundational and life stories and describe the relationship between the two
  • Gather and use client’s stories to help them understand and change substance abuse and emotional problems
  • Describe the importance of witnessing and demonstrate thematic listening
  • Identify the relationship among substance use, mental illness, and trauma
  • Describe one use of story-based ritual to assist therapists in creating healthy boundaries between work life and home life

Visit www.sassi.com/other-training-online for registration information, provides 4 CEs. 

We Want to Hear From YOU!

Here at The SASSI Institute we pride ourselves on the work we do to provide validated instruments that help you, as well as your clients.  To do an even better job, we are asking for your feedback.  We want to know how our instruments support your work.  But we also want to hear how we can improve our tools.  Our new Feedback Form gives you an outlet to share your ideas and critiques. 

Click here to complete the feedback form.

If you have a heartwarming experience you would like to share about how our instrument has helped you or a client, we would love to hear that too.  Please feel free to share your story* with us at blog@sassi.com.

*Please exclude identifying client information from the submission

New Professional Development Webinars Available

The SASSI Institute is pleased to announce that we are launching a line of Professional Development webinars. We will be doing these in partnership with guest lecturers on topics that may be of interest to professionals in the addiction field.

Our first such webinar is Comprehensive Screening & Advanced Assessment of Addiction presented by Dr. Don Osborne. Below is additional information on this workshop:

The Screening and assessment processes are critical to effective addiction treatment. In fact, treatment can only be as effective as the thoroughness of the assessment process. The screening and assessment processes can and should result in clients’ reduced denial or “resistance” and easily transition into therapy.

In this training program you will be able to:

  • Understand screening and assessment.
  • Be able to describe a comprehensive concept of addiction’s progressive nature with problems, tolerance and loss of control.
  • Be able to determine the kinds of questions to ask a client that are most relevant during an initial interview.
  • Be able to formulate specific relevant questions to ask during the interview process.
  • How to use Motivational Interviewing to engage clients and develop a rapport with them.
  • How to obtain collateral information about the client.
  • How to use the DSM-5’s criteria for SUD to diagnose clients and decrease clients’ resistance to treatment.
  • Gaining clients’ trust, reduce denial and resistance to treatment.
  • Gain clients’ agreement that they are addicted to some substance or behavior at a particular stage of the addiction process.
  • How to determine the specific level of care advocated by ASAM.
  • How to transition from screening to the assessment to the therapy stages of treatment.

Visit www.sassi.com/other-training-online/ for registration information, provides 4 CEUs.