What is Invitation To Change? Meet Jarell Myers, PhD

I’m very pleased to be talking with Jarell Myers, PhD, who discusses the Invitation to Change Approach (ITC). how it can help families, and the upcoming family training.

Welcome, Jarell!

Click below to watch the interview and to learn more about Dr. Myers. 

Here are my takeaways:

1) Can you explain the Invitation to Change Approach (ITC) and how it can help families concerned about substance use?

We wanted to take the scientific piece that we as psychologists have learned over time around kindness, how to be kind to yourself, and how to be kind to your loved one during this really difficult period of time and create a method that the everyday person can use when they are coming up against struggles that their loved one may be going through,

We added pieces of CRAFT, such as Motivational Interviewing, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and combine all of those things together into one package.

And, we want to create an environment where loved ones are helping to invite and motivate their loved ones to change their behaviors, to think about things a little bit differently, to explore and experiment with other behaviors that could be more helpful for them than their substance use has been.

We built ITC off of four different tenets:

• Increase understanding
• Expand self-awareness
• Act with communication and encouraging/discouraging behaviors;
• Practice

If families learn these skills and apply them appropriately through practice, then we are increasing the likelihood that families can help motivate their loved ones toward change so that the situation for the individual as well as the family improves. 

There is nothing that works better than substances to relieve distress in the short term. The issue is that substances don’t exist on their own. They come with a whole bunch of baggage.

Using and abusing substances affects us in different ways that move us away from the values that are really important to us.

We want to help people learn that there are other things that we can do to help them meet their needs, it may not be as effective, but will still move them toward alignment with their values.

2) Anxiety seems to be more prevalent these days. Can you share some thoughts about anxiety and substance use disorders?

Fear is one of our basic emotions as humans, it’s part of the package. We have evolved over and fear has stuck with us.  There is no issue with fear. Fear has been very helpful in keeping us alive as a species.

When fear continues over a longer period of time, and when it is associated with things that are not innately dangerous, it becomes anxiety. Anxiety stops us from doing the things that we should as humans typically be able to do. 

Because of how developed our brains are, we begin to adapt anxiety to more abstract thinking. Think of it as I’m getting nervous about something that is going to happen in the future.

I might become so anxious about it, that I might bail out of it and not show up, or have stage fright and not be able to speak. 

The goal of any anxiety treatment is to help the individual face their fears. I want you to be able to do the things that you have become fearful of.

If I am afraid of something, it doesn’t mean that I need to stop doing that thing. My fear should not be the lone judgmental factor in me moving forward or staying stationary. I should be able to be in charge of that decision myself. And if I”m experiencing fear, it doesn’t mean that that is the final decisionmaker.

That internalized feeling of fear should not be a stop sign. It should more so be a suggestion. I should pay attention to this and that’s it.

Fear and substances

We’ve all experienced anxiety. We’ve all experienced fear. There’s nothing that feels good about it. It feels pretty bad inside our bodies.

It makes sense that we use some sort of substance to help ourselves feel better, to help ourselves stop thinking about that thing that is making us experience that fear.

People have grown accustomed to using a substance as a means of dealing with their anxiety or fear. It can be hard to pull those two things apart as they have built up such a strong relationship.

We want to also encourage our adolescents to keep being brave, to face the things that they are fearful of.  That can be a really hard thing to do because it feels like it goes against what is best for our loved ones.

If I’m thinking about it as a behavior that I want to change, I want them to move towards that behavior that may be difficult for them.

I want them to teach their bodies and their minds that as difficult as this may be in the moment, they’re capable, they’re able to do this thing.

They just have to be brave enough to take that first step and then the second step and then the third step.

3) What is harm reduction, and how can it be used as an approach for substance use?

When somebody steps into my office, I can’t make the assumption that they are stepping into my office because they are ready to change the way they’ve been living life with substances.  The assumption that I’m making is that someone is coming in, and they’re curious about what things could be like if they looked at things differently.

But they are not necessarily committed to making any necessary change at that point in time. When it comes to substances, we may be thinking about more of a harm reduction approach.

They may want to continue using, but don’t want all the detrimental effects that come from using this far. And they want to be thoughtful and make plans about how they are using substances to be sure that they’re safe.

They can continue being curious about different things, and not necessarily say, I’m done. This is it for me. My goal is to work with people who want to take that approach. Ultimately, I try to meet people wherever they are.

If you stepped into my office, that is a great first step and we can go wherever you want to go or do not want to go. I just want to be as helpful as possible.

If someone is coming in and they want to continue using, I want to be sure that they are able to come into my office on a weekly basis. I want to be sure as much as possible, that they are able to stay alive.

If they want to continue using, I want them to be doing so in a safe way. We’ll come up with a plan on how to do that.

4) Please tell us about your upcoming ITC Family Workshop and what you hope family members will learn.

June 24-25th, we will be having a workshop for family members who are interested in learning more about Invitation to Change.

We will be going more in-depth on the four tenets that I spoke about: understanding, awareness, action, and practice.

We will be teaching folks how to understand the things they need to focus on and understand about their loved ones and why, they as the caregiver, parent or family member may be acting in the way that they are.

• Increasing their awareness, so helping family members understand that they are part of the change process too.
• To help their loved ones, sustain or move toward change, means that they also have to be taking care of themselves and be willing to accept the different things that come with that package and how to enact all of this.
• How to become more effective in the way that I communicate with my adolescent.
• How to reinforce the behaviors that I want to see and not reinforce the behaviors that I don’t want to see?
• How to go about practicing all of that.
• What resources and tools are out there for me?

It’s designed for family members, and for anyone who may be interested in taking a look at what we’re doing and learning a little bit more.

You can learn more about the upcoming Family Training here. 

5) Any last thoughts for parents concerned about their teens or young adults?

I was doing a talk with a colleague and a question came up, “Is there a point where I give up hope?”The question touched me because I can understand this feeling of not knowing what to do, trying everything that you’ve tried, and feeling as if you’re getting nowhere.

I answered that question, saying, “Absolutely not. There’s never a bad time to help. There are always going. to be options out there.

It’s about maintaining that hope, maintaining the idea that there is something that can help me help my loved one with this thing that they’ve been having a really hard time with. And also help me too as their caregiver, as their parent, as their guardian.

The maintenance of that hope over time is the thing that helps folks out the most.

Being able to take care of yourself as much as possible to maintain that hope, and do the things that need to be done in order to help your loved one.

There isn’t just one road to get that person functioning more effectively. There are many different roads that they can take and the path looks different for everyone.

We have to be open to accepting that what I may want, may not be exactly what my loved one wants, but if I’m able to help them get to a place where they are functioning better, where they are able to live their life more in line with their values, and the things that are most important.

Continue to be encouraged. Continue to fight for your loved one. Continue to push them to move towards change in healthy and effective ways.

Jarell R.O. Myers, PhD is a clinical psychologist, licensed in both New York and Massachusetts, with training in cognitive-behavioral and dialectical behavioral approaches to treatment. He earned his doctorate in clinical psychology from Fairleigh Dickinson University and completed an APA-accredited internship at Mt. Sinai St. Luke’s Hospital on the child and adolescent track. In addition, Dr. Myers completed a two year postdoctoral fellowship in child and adolescent psychology at New York Presbyterian Hospital-Weill Cornell Medical Center in White Plains, New York where the focus was on treatment for anxiety. He used that experience at McLean Hospital in Cambridge, Massachusetts where he worked with children and adolescents diagnosed with Anxiety and Obsessive Compulsive Disorders in an intensive outpatient clinic. Dr. Myers has expertise in working with adolescents and young adults with comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders and adopts a harm reduction approach when appropriate.