Matkalla itsensä kanssa : työkirja päihderiippuvuudesta toipuville israelilaisille naisille

Abstract

Koskela, Henna-Leena. Matkalla itsensä kanssa : työkirja päihderiippuvuudesta toipuville israelilaisille naisille. Diak Etelä Helsinki, kevät 2011, 105 s., 1 liite. Diakonia-ammattikorkeakoulu, Sosiaalialan koulutusohjelma, sosionomi (AMK).

Opinnäytetyön tarkoitus oli luoda työkirja päihteistä kuntoutuville naisille israelilaisen sosiaalialan järjestön käyttöön. Opinnäytetyö oli produktio, eli toiminnallinen opinnäy-tetyö, jonka tuotoksena oli englanninkielinen Travelling Through Life with Yourself -työkirja.

Opinnäytetyön teoreettinen osuus perustui Israelin kulttuuristen erityispiirteiden ja huumetilanteen sekä päihdeongelmien ja niistä toipumisen reittien tarkasteluun. Työkir-jan lähestymistavaksi valittiin kognitiiviset menetelmät.

Työkirjassa keskitytään kognitiivisen lähestymistavan mukaan tunnistamaan ja muok-kaamaan omaan itseen, päihteiden käyttöön ja elämään liittyviä uskomuksia ja ajatuksia. Työkirja huomioi naiseuteen liittyvät erityiskysymykset, kuten äitiyden.

Työkirja koostuu kahdestatoista itsenäisestä luvusta, jotka mahdollistavat työkirjan mo-nipuolisen ja joustavan käytön erilaisten naisten kanssa. Työkirja voi toimia itsetunte-muksen ja itsensä hyväksymisen kehittämisen välineenä, mikä tukee päihteettömään elämään tähtäävää muutosprosessia.

Israelilaisen yhteistyöjärjestön työntekijät ohjasivat työkirjan työstämisprosessissa. Jär-jestön työntekijät arvioivat työkirjan vastaavan hyvin heidän tarpeisiinsa ja huomioivan kulttuuriset erityispiirteet. Järjestö käännätti työkirjan hepreaksi ja venäjäksi ja on jo kokeillut sen käyttöä asiakastyössä. Asiasanat: päihdeongelmaiset, naiset, päihdekuntoutus, työkirjat, Israel, produktio

Koskela, Henna-Leena. Travelling Through Life with Yourself: Workbook for Israeli women rehabilitating from substance abuse. 105 p., 1 appendix Language: Finnish and English. Helsinki, Spring 2011. Diaconia University of Applied Sciences. Degree Programme in Social Services. Degree: Bachelor of Social Services.

The aim of the thesis was to prepare a workbook for women with substance abuse prob-lems in Israel. The thesis was done as a production in cooperation with an Israeli non-governmental social work organisation.

The Israeli society is very multi-cultural due to mass immigration since the birth of the state. Israel is a democracy that is strongly influenced by religion. Both humanistic and religious pursuits affect the way women are viewed.

When comparing Finland and Israel in the light of an Israeli and a United Nations sur-vey, drugs were more common and significantly cheaper is Israel. In Israel, some 10 per cent of adults and another 10 per cent of young people had used drugs within a year. The most used drug was cannabis that was popular especially among students.

The Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Social Welfare are in charge of drug rehabil-itation in Israel. 150 municipalities offer mainly outpatient treatment for substance ab-users. There are also 15 day centres and eight inpatient facilities, some of which tailored for special population groups. There are also private facilities and opioid replacement treatment centres.

According to the Israeli specialists, the need for rehabilitation services for women is obvious. Women are underrepresented in the mixed facilities and the topics they want to deal with are different from men.

Becoming addicted is always caused by many different personal factors. In the same way, there are many channels for weaning off of alcohol and drugs and many ideologies behind different kinds of treatments. What seem to be more important than ideology are the therapist’s approach, the relationship between the client and the worker and the ex-pectations and beliefs towards the treatment.

The workbook was based on cognitive methods. Congnitive methods have been used in rehabilitation programmes because of their purposefulness and applicability. Cognitive methods aim at recognising and altering harmful cognitions, such as thoughts, informa-tion processes, beliefs and inner pictures. Through cognitive exercises a person learns to understand their risk situations, cues, harmful thoughts and beliefs related to substances. The aim is to create alternative methods of behaviour to replace the destructive ones.

The aim of the workbook was to be a tool for women to maintain a sober lifestyle. The goal was approached by forming questions that help women to recognise and alter their thoughts and beliefs about themselves, substances and life. The themes in the workbook aimed at assisting the women in reshaping their identity and getting to know themselves better.

Recovering from substance abuse is a change in lifestyle. In the last phases of the process sobriety is already attained, and a person is faced with other aspects of life, such as motherhood, concept of self worth, boundaries and goals for the future.

These themes were taken under consideration in the workbook, as well as one’s life line, questions of guilt and forgiveness and relapse prevention. Considering Israeli women, also themes like womanhood and sexuality, family history and cultural background, spi-rituality and sense of belonging to a place were included in the workbook.

The workbook consisted of twelve separate chapters, which enabled its flexible use with women in different situations. The personnel in the cooperating organization helped in forming some of the themes and questions in the workbook.

The organization evaluated the workbook to be a very useful tool in their work. Accord-ing to them, the workbook succeeded in paying attention to both cultural features and special themes for women. The organization had the workbook translated into Hebrew and Russian and started testing it in their work.