Balance Rehab

11/11/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AsW2j7LoR/?mibextid=wwXIfr

29/10/2025

My second book with Master Mantak Chia will be available for purchase November 11, 2025.

Explore addiction through Taoist wisdom, trauma theory, and modern psychology to find balance, healing, and recovery through yin-yang harmony.

09/10/2025

Have you been struggling to address an addiction to something(s) other than drugs or alcohol, like gambling, s*x, p**n, food, shopping, gaming or screens? Balance Rehab can help.

03/10/2025

08/09/2025

What are some clues that the outcome measures you are using (or considering using) are part of a cult? Here are some:

1) The creator of the measures is not open to feedback about them. If you are supposed to use the measures to get feedback, the example should be given from the top down.

2) Using the measures requires you to give them veto power over your own perceptions. Useful measures will not undermine your self-confidence.

3) There are direct and/or indirect consequences if you do not praise the measures or defer to them.

4) The research that is used to support the measures is only allowed to be interpreted one way. The general rule of thumb is to have at least a few hypotheses for why a study produced certain results.

5) Even though the measures are meant to be applied to any counselling approach, there are direct and indirect messages from the creator and his supporters that only certain approaches are approved. Another bad sign is when approaches that are have outcomes measures built into them are not allowed to be used.

6) Vague promises of fame and fortune are promised by the creator to people who support the measures and promote them to other counsellors.

23/08/2025

Outcome measures are a hot topic in addictions treatment now. They involve the routine use of standardized questions with clients to gain information about how they are responding to the treatment that is offered. There are obvious benefits to soliciting feedback from clients, but there are also dangers in relying on them too much. Here are some of the dangers:
1. Sometimes management uses them as a way to threaten or micromanage their counsellors.
2. Clients sometimes alter their responses to influence their treatment in ways that they want.
3. It is sometimes assumed that the responses that clients give to the questions are more accurate than what the counsellor thinks they need. That is not always true.
4. Responses to outcome measures can give counsellors ideas about where the therapy needs improvement, but does not tell them how to improve it.
5. Responses to outcome measures do not guarantee that the counsellor will become more motivated to make appropriate changes to his or her approach.
6. Despite reassurance to the contrary, clients can sometimes fear that the measures are being used to evaluate them.

14/07/2025

To say that research is more objective than personal observation is misleading for a number of reasons. Results from a controlled environment may not be an accurate representation of a natural setting. The factors that they choose to examine in a study may not be the critical ones. Researchers can still, knowingly or unknowingly, influence the results of a study. Observation is also a form of research called qualitative research (rather than quantitative).

13/07/2025

Research is based on the concept of testing and trying to disprove theories, hypotheses and concepts. If someone tries to tell you that you cannot challenge a research finding, that person does not understand research and/or is trying to use research findings to overpower others in the way she or he desires. Beware of power mongers and snake oil salespeople.

10/07/2025

Why should you consider receiving treatment in a beautiful place like Tao Garden? Shouldn’t you be in a place that feels more like prison so that you are punished and taught a lesson for your misdeeds? A lot of people think that is trues. Loved ones who are resentful for all your addiction has put them through often think that way.

Remember that addiction is a mood-altering activity. People do it to feel better. If people go to some horrible environment for treatment and they are miserable there, then they might get triggered back to their addiction. Also remember that lasting recovery involves creating a life and lifestyle that is so enjoyable that the idea of returning to an addiction is not appealing. How can you learn how to do that in an environment that feels like a prison?

09/07/2025

Did you know that correlation and causation are not the same? Correlation just refers to the tendency for things to change at the same time. It doesn’t mean that one factor causes another. For example, decades ago a study found that eating ice cream was correlated with increased violence. Some people thought that meant that eating ice cream caused people to be violent. However, both of those factors were associated with a third factor - hot weather. If someone says or implies that research has found that some factor causes another, be suspicious. A red flag for misinterpretations of research results is when someone says “the research says…”. Research does not talk. It doesn’t think. It just reports.

09/07/2025

Be a good consumer. Sometimes results from research are used to support a particular approach or kack thereof that a program or therapist uses. Read the research yourself. For example, many people cite a study by Smith & Glass (1977) called Meta-analysis of psychotherapy outcome studies. It was published in the American Psychologist journal, volume 32, pages 752-760. Many people refer to that article as proof that all counselling approaches work as well as the others. If you read the Discussion section of that article (which is one of the longest ones I’ve ever read, by the way) the researchers discuss at length the dangers of coming to any black-and-white conclusions based on their results. The studies they compared used different subjects, different locations, different numbers of sessions, and varied on many other factors. There are lots of reasons to be skeptical of research results. That’s research, after all.