Watch the Video (allow up to 3 minutes to load):
In Her Own Words

In 2005, substance abuse therapist Susan Redford was ready to recycle her notepad, donate the couch and go get a job flipping burgers.

A master's level licensed therapist for 14 years, one day she concluded she really wasn't helping anyone. On the contrary, Redford, a licensed professional counselor, licensed independent substance abuse counselor and marriage and family therapist, decided that she was actually compounding people's problems. "They can only see me when they have a problem," she explains, "so even if we fix a problem, they have to create new problems to continue a relationship with me. It was the revolving door syndrome and I was contributing to it."

Before she filled out the fast food job application, a flyer came her way on Howard Glasser's one-day seminars. She threw it away. But her conscience pestered her, "You can't say you've tried everything, because you haven't tried that." She retrieved the seminar information and hopped a plane from Yuma, Arizona, to Sacramento, California, for the seminar.

Ironically, two of her coworkers, "also fried," she says, were at the seminar. Together they learned an approach that was 180-degrees different from their current methods and what they learned at the university. "We were so energized at the end of the seminar," she said. "We knew we had something remarkable, powerful and we each knew in our hearts that it was going to work."

They began using it immediately in their substance abuse treatment programs, mostly group sessions. "I was clumsy with the approach, but committed to use it," Redford said. Clumsy or not, Redford and her colleagues saw results. That spurred them on and soon Redford was at Advanced Training.

"After advanced training," Redford said, "I made a decision to go for the jugular of the divinity, and as a therapist, I had never had that thought before."

One day a woman who had a long history of methamphetamine abuse and accompanying issues showed up unannounced at the agency blaming others because she had failed her drug test. "I declined to meet with her because that would be providing relationship around negativity." So Redford sent a message that she would see the woman at the regularly scheduled group meeting. At that meeting, the woman said to the group, "I failed my drug test because I used." Redford stood up and said, "In this moment, I have to accuse you of being a very honest person. I have to accuse you of being a woman of integrity. You're not blaming anyone else; you're not making any excuses. You're taking responsibility for your actions. Now how long have you been clean?" That one ephipany led the group in a totally new direction. The members shared how many years of drug-free living they had prior to their current state.

In four months, the woman with a long history of abuse was completely healed. "Not just 'not using,' but healed," Redford emphasizes.

In ensuing months, Redford made it routine to say, "I just have to accuse you of...." and she would fill-in-the-blank from her long list of honorable qualities that the women were demonstrating. Soon the women in the group were doing the same for themselves and each other. They began to see their greatness and be their greatness.

For the past three years, Redford has been perfecting this technique of "accusations of greatness." Her hypothesis is that accusations open the wounded pathways and enable the healing to enter. She hopes her work is one day confirmed by research. 

If beauty is in the eye of the beholder, greatness is in the heart of the healer. And what a heart Redford has: Instead of seeing drug addicts as people with problems, Redford saw people with greatness.

"Because of the Nurtured Heart approach, I am no longer practicing therapy, I am practicing transformation."   

© 2009 ENERGYPARENTING.COM

WOULD YOU LIKE TO USE THIS RESOURCE IN YOUR BLOG, NEWSLETTER OR WEBSITE? You have our permission to use this resource in its entirety with the following attribution: © 2009 ENERGYPARENTING.COM, the official online learning center for Howard Glasser's Nurtured Heart Approach™. Sign up for ENERGYPARENTING News at www.energyparenting.com and learn why normal parenting, teaching and therapy techniques backfire with challenging children in our free eBook, "The Top 2 Biggest Parenting Mistakes."