Tag: The SASSI Institute

The Power of Narrative Therapy

Last month, Dr. Hugh Marr, a longtime trainer on the SASSI and clinical psychologist in the private practice of psychotherapy in the Washington, DC area gave an interview on the Shrink Rap Radio podcast. Dr. Marr has taught both substance abuse counseling and psychotherapy at area universities; and has worked in all phases of community mental health, culminating in running a partial hospital program for clients with the co-occurring disorders of substance use and major mental illness. He is the author of A Clinician’s Guide to Foundational Story Psychotherapy: Co-changing Narratives, Co-changing Lives (Routledge, 2020); and the coauthor of the books What Story Are You Living? (CAPT, 2009) and Introduction to Archetypes (CAPT, 2002). His forthcoming workbook for a general audience, also to be published by CAPT, will be titled Finding Your Story. You can view a clip from that interview here or a link to the interview in its entirety can be found here.

The SASSI Institute is excited that Dr. Marr has developed a workshop based on his five-star rated book: A Clinician’s Guide to Foundational Story Psychotherapy: Co-changing Narratives, Co-changing Lives. This workshop is being offered through The SASSI Institute’s Professional Development Platform. A link to a flyer with additional information on the workshop can be viewed here.

We hope you enjoy the interview and that you will join us for this informative webinar.

To register for the webinar and see our other titles, click here.

Turning the Corner on COVID-19

Dear Friends,

For more than a year now, our lives have been literally turned upside down. Many of us have lost loved ones and friends or had them severely affected by this terrible pandemic. It has caused upheavals in basically all areas of our lives.

But I think it is safe to say that we are finally turning the corner. Science tells us that the required herd immunities and vaccinations are soon to be at optimal levels. Here at The SASSI Institute, we are at more than 95% capacity. And I am so proud of our staff, their dedication and professionalism as they continued to serve you, the heart of our business. They were with you through thick and thin, and despite the multiple obstacles, collectively we accomplished an extraordinary level of achievements throughout this time. For example, we have multiple publications that are now in the public domain. Please contact our Customer Service Team if you are interested in any of them, they are free of charge. If interested in our Training services and availabilities, contact our Training Director Ms. Scarlett Baker, or our Executive Assistant, Ms. Lauren Nelson. Kristin Kimmell LMSW, LCAC, our Clinical Director and her team are available for any of your clinical concerns. And by the way, Lauren also serves as our IT specialist, so she is available for any mishaps in your IT service provision.

In sum, I am very proud of you, our customers for maintaining our collaborations, our staff for making that possible, and to the many, many individuals we serve, may their path to recovery be enlightened by your services.

With warm regards,

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

Criminal Justice Publication Accepted

Hello friends and colleagues,

We hope you and your families are all doing well. We wanted to call your attention to our very latest peer reviewed publication, released earlier this month. The title is: Criminal Justice Alcohol and Drug Screening in Practice: Using the Substance Abuse Subtle Screening Inventory to Identify Substance Use Disorder in Offenders.

Now in its fourth iteration (SASSI-4), this article discusses the SASSI screening tools’ utility with criminal offenders and reviews a case study of a young male’s clinical evaluation while incarcerated. While SUD is not the only contributing factor to criminality, it significantly increases the likelihood of legal infraction and violations, placing these individuals at a higher risk of re-offending. Thus, identifying SUD as early as possible in the clinical relationship helps provide tailored treatment to those who need it, while simultaneously reducing the risk of future legal difficulties.

For this case study, we reviewed the SASSI-4 screening results of a 24-year-old male. The case presents an excellent example of the value of early identification of substance use disorder and potential problems in criminal justice settings.

We hope you enjoy the article, and as always, we look forward to your submissions and comments.

Addiction Professional Spotlight: Charlie Stookey, MA, LADC, LADC-S

I have had the pleasure of being on staff at The SASSI Institute for 22 years. Throughout that time, I have had the opportunity to work closely with many addiction professionals. Their dedication and passion for helping individuals in recovery or in need of recovery have always astonished me.

One of these professionals whom I have known throughout my time at the Institute is Charlie Stookey, MA, LADC, LADC-S. Charlie was a trainer for the SASSI when I started my career at the Institute. He presented training on the earliest versions of the SASSI, having been taught by none other than our late Founder and SASSI creator, Dr. Glenn Miller. Charlie retired from training many years ago, and while we have never met in person, we have stayed in touch over the years, and I am glad to call him a friend. He attended Whitman College and the University of Nevada, Reno, and is currently a substance abuse counselor in Reno, Nevada. Charlie also has a passion for poetry and has been published in the West Coast Poetry Review, Blue Moon, and The Meadow. He believes in the gift of the Wounded Healer and Joseph Campbell’s The Hero’s Journey. I want to share one of his poems with all of you today and encourage you to take the time to read it peacefully.

Charlie asked me to share that he hopes the heroine in Phases of the Moon, finds the beginning of her sober journey in the reflection in the detox mirror. And that she finds the “life that awaits us.” In our groups, we are in a gathering of miracles and he is grateful for the opportunity to sit with them.

Phases of the Moon The new moon is a cat’s claw in the night sky. Clint C. Ricketts

Beneath Thunder Moons and Corn Moons, she names her four rescued cats, Moon Beam, Moon Light, Moon Shadow, and, of course, Moon Shine. The phases of the moon
are tattooed on the nape of her neck “to honor the mystery and permanence of the moon over time. It’s reliable.” It’s so easy to turn the course of her disease into the curse of the disease 
with its hungry ghosts. No glass Japanese floats lie atop the scarred nightstand; but earrings, ER receipts, doubts, matches, butt ends of relationships.
She regrets the drunken, meth-fueled fights with her husband, who later committed suicide. “Killed himself over…whatever. Me,
all that lottery money, heartache, whatever.” Moonlight creek sings to Cottonwoods in the darkness. Grief waxes and wanes.
When loneliness strikes, she writes lamentations: Full October moon Drowns pinpoint constellations. I miss your bright eyes.
The riptide from the fifth of a gallon a day floods the road of good intentions. Its ebb leaves tide pools of anxiety and depression ripening in a sour stomach. 
Each morning’s hangover brings the pounding of relentless reality, the ever-present eternal goddam now. Last night’s shame haloes her head in hangover vises. She pukes. Starts the hands-and-knees
search party for dimes or quarters or pennies for a half-pint of mercy. She ignores the snores of an anonymous cowboy under a throw and the spray of clothes.
She wipes withdrawal’s sweat from her face, swipes at the brain fog. The riptide created by her moons leaves an empty curse. She flings the empty purse
of promises into the furthest corners of cobweb resolve, another tourist attraction. When the new moon slides between sun and earth, the eclipse covers her soul like a shawl.
She peers into the silvered glass of the detox bathroom mirror, where a stranger greets her. A shadow of comfort arises when she strokes her new moon, colored and frozen on her neck

A Message to Our Colleagues, Customers and Friends

We would like to take this opportunity to invite you, our many colleagues, to express your views, research findings and other developments within our SASSI Network blog. Our intent with this forum has always been to embrace the opinions and experiences of so many professionals and treatment providers throughout the country and indeed throughout the world. This forum is meant to be one of inclusion, not exclusion. All professionals from the multitude of addiction services provided have value and merit inclusion. These might focus on screening, testing, assessment, treatment, interventions, and others. We invite your submissions, and welcome your viewpoints. We feel this forum provides an opportunity to enrich us all with a collective wealth of knowledge that will ultimately enrich the addiction field. If you would like to contribute, please contact us at blog@sassi.com.

We hope that all of you and your families have managed to stay healthy during this tumultuous year. Our hearts go out to those that have experienced loss, suffering or pain during this Pandemic that has taken far so many lives. We remain hopeful that now that several vaccines are in distribution, and vaccinations are proceeding expeditiously, that we are nearing the close of this chapter in all our lives.

Please consider joining us by contributing your knowledge to our blog!

Interpreting the Results of an Adolescent SASSI-A3 with a High OAT Score

Happy New Year everyone!

I received my first Adolescent A-3 call on the helpline and was so excited and when I heard the numbers, I knew exactly why the clinician was calling.

As you look at the profile, you can see most of the numbers are within the norm. He meets Rule 6 so comes up with a High Probability of a Substance Use Disorder and no Prescription Drug Abuse.  So, what clinical information can the scale scores give you with so few scales outside the norm?

Although the FVOD is within the norm, it is above average and as recommended, you can do content analysis of his Face Valid scales. Another scale to pay attention to is the OAT score of 7 which is elevated. This suggests the client can acknowledge personal limitations and shortcomings and identify with other substance abusers. However, he may not want to or think he can change. The other significant score is SAT with a score of 1 which is below the 15th percentile. This suggests he may be hypersensitive to others and comes across as having a chip on his shoulder. This gives you good information on how to approach this client, especially when giving him feedback as you process the results with him because he is not giving you a whole lot of direct information regarding his use.

A word about the VAL of 6. If the numbers had resulted in a Low Probability of a Substance Use Disorder, you would question the results and do further investigation. Because he met Rule 6, there is no need to address the VAL. That said, with the VAL being so high, was this individual trying to manipulate the questionnaire and didn’t succeed?

Finally, users of the older version will notice that the SCS has been eliminated. This will require your use of the DSM-5 to determine the diagnosis and level of severity from your assessment.

Hope this information is instructive and assists you in your practice. And remember, as usual, we are here to help, so give the clinical line a call at 800-726-0526, press 2.

PDF Version Available for Download

New Publication!

The SASSI Institute is pleased to announce the publication of its newest manuscript “Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Co-Morbidities Among Teens in Treatment: SASSI-A3 Correlations in Screening Scores.” Within this article, we review data from teenagers in treatment focusing on mental health diagnoses alongside a DSM-5 diagnosis of substance use disorder. Our hope is that by identifying possible correlations between SASSI-A3 scale scores and diagnosed mental health disorders, (depression and anxiety in particular), will provide clinicians with additional tools to direct the course of subsequent clinical interviews, in particular for teens suffering from co-occurring disorders. This Open-Access article is available here: Mental Health and Substance Use Disorder Co-Morbidities Among Teens in Treatment: SASSI-A3 Correlations in Screening Scores

As 2020 Comes to a Close: A Message from the CEO

This year has been unusual in so many respects. Our resolves, faiths, and tenacities have been tested for over ten months now. We have suffered losses and multiple pains, including emotional, mental and physical. We have endured an almost constant barraging drain on our senses. For over two straight weeks now we have experienced more than 100K daily COVID-19 cases nationally. As a result, many of us have lost loved ones, friends, or colleagues. Many more have been unable to see our loved ones, but for the benefits of social media.

I for one, have been unable to see, hold, and hug my family for close to a year. I consider the risks too high to endanger myself and those I love any more than I have to. But I also know I am not alone and I know we are looking forward to a really great Holiday season next year; we will celebrate twice as hard in 2021. Various vaccines and antibody drugs are in development, and we should all be immensely grateful to all of the scientists, nurses, doctors, caregivers, and caretakers, that risk their lives daily in the hopes of developing something fast, and caring for the ill until we do.

Yet the truly amazing thing, what is truly astonishing is that despite these pains, throughout these arduous journeys, throughout these uncertainties, we have found the inner strength and fortitude to trudge on. A true testament to the human spirit. Through it all, we have managed to be there for one another, for our friends, colleagues, and for our families. We have remained united, and that should be foremost in all our minds.

In my humble opinion, in order to succeed and defeat this Pandemic in the end, it is in our best interests, indeed our civic duty to maintain our focus on what needs getting done. Let’s each do our part by adhering to the CDC’s policies and protocols. It also our fervent hope that at some point soon, the entire country is protected with enough COVID vaccinations that we successfully eradicate this Pandemic as we have historically done to other calamitous diseases in the past.

In the meantime, our staff, Board of Directors, and myself, offer you only the best for the coming year. Better times lie ahead!

Be kind to yourselves and let’s make it our mission to take care of each other, as best we can.

Happy Holidays!