Treatment for substance abuse in residential centres in the 21st century.

Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.The aim of this exploratory study was to examine and compare three traditional models of substance abuse treatment interventions at various rehabilitation treatment centres in South Africa. Three treatment centers were chosen each representing a particular treatment model, namely the Disease/Minnesota Model at Careline Crisis Centre (Hillcrest, Durban), the Therapeutic Community Model at Horizon Halfway House (Cape Town) and the Narconon Model at Narconon Rehab (Johannesburg). Data was obtained by means of two research instruments, namely structured interview schedules and focus group. The study was qualitative entailing critical analysis of data yielded by the research instruments. In the structured interview, the researcher asked the staff members at each centre questions and recorded their answers while the focus group methodology was used with the clients or patients (referred to as "students" in the Narconon Model) at each of the centres. The groups were comprised of three or four members. The study was conducted in two phases where phase one comprised. 13 themes and phase two comprised three themes. Based on the structured interviews with the staff members at the three treatment centres and the data yielded from the focus groups of the clients, strengths, weaknesses, differing conceptualizations of chemical addiction and the foci of intervention to treat the addictions of clients were evaluated with the purpose of integrating the best from each of these models of treatment to propose the development of what the researcher has chosen to call The Empowerment Model. Drawing from the conception of human consciousness in the philosophical tradition of existentialism where human consciousness is viewed as Nothingness, a void that is filled or engaged with Being-inthe- World, Being-with-Others and being-with-Oneself. Failure in the engagement of consciousness leads to a frustrating painful void. Given the existence of addictive chemicals, the human in the course of the history of humankind developed the ingestion of such chemicals to seek to fill the void with pleasurable sense experiences. The Empowerment Model aims to create an awareness of this human weakness and advocates filling or engaging this void with purpose in life comprising most notably Spirituality, Sociability, Vocation and Recreation to grow and evolve to a point of going beyond being human