Comfort Within My Own Skin
Sharon Loveseth 4-22-2022
Many HSE practitioners at one time or another will be working with clients who have experienced Substance Abuse Disorder (SUD). In this presentation, I’ll present some highlights of my experience with these clients, including teaching them HSE within a group setting. This session will include information on how to help these clients engage and learn productively, in the process building interpersonal skills and reinforcing/developing social support networks. We’ll also look at the Stages of Change model (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1977) which has informed my work. Finally, I’ll discuss the structure of the HSE group sessions I’ve conducted and my observations. There will be some time at the end for questions.
Sharon Loveseth, CHSE, Licensed Advanced Alcohol and Drug Counselor (LAADC), CHSE has an extensive background in substance use disorder counseling (since 1988), treatment program design, quality assurance, and management. She continues her work today as a Commission on Accreditation for Rehabilitative Facilities Surveyor of behavioral health organizations; and Quality Reviewer for Behavioral Health Concepts, to conduct external quality reviews for California county’s Drug Medi-Cal Organized Delivery System. From 1998–2018, she was co-owner and administrator for Healthy Partnerships, an outpatient behavioral health treatment and DUI Program services provider and she retired from Alameda County Behavioral Health’s Quality Assurance department in 2020. Sharon entered into the world of massage therapy and health education in 1987. While providing deep tissue bodywork in her private practice, she experienced a significant loss of strength in her arms. To regain her strength, she sought help from a variety of bodyworkers, healers, and also participated in a UC San Francisco study on carpal tunnel. In 1998, she contacted Susan Koenig, who was one of her original massage teachers, and within six weeks of the first HSE session her strength was restored. Later that year she applied for the HSE training. She graduated in Wave 4.