On the 18th March 2008 THOMAS opened its new Residential Drug & Alcohol Rehabilitation Unit
Witton Bank provides a caring environment for men who want to address their drug & alcohol problems. It offers them the opportunity to rebuild their lives by finding a solution to addiction and giving people a chance to enjoy a life of recovery. We appreciate that our service users need a high degree of support; this we provide through a group dynamic programme where the process of repairing self-esteem, dignity, and self-respect begins. Our programmes of rehabilitation, support intervention and advice are intended to transform lives.
Our ethos is
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Be still
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Listen
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Learn
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Know
Our therapeutic programme is essentially an eclectic approach to drug and alcohol rehabilitation.
It combines the “biopsychosocial” model of recovery with the “Minnesota” concept.
It promulgates an integrative method of therapy and human development based on:
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Logic
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Accepted Psychological Theories
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Spirituality & Lived Experience
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Creative Art Therapy
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Community Living
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Learning & Development
In addition it invites the graduates of its programme to join an Academy of Development after drug treatment ends, where it is committed to its student’s success. It teaches people the skills needed to advance in the world of employment, building a dialogue with management learning and inviting businesses to help develop its graduates.
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Psychological theories used in programme
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Psychodynamic
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CBT
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Person Centred Counselling
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Psychodynamic
This approach holds that bringing the unconscious into conscious awareness promotes insight and resolves conflict.
CBT
Cognitive behavioural therapy emphasizes the role of thinking in how we feel and what we do. CBT stresses the fact that thoughts, rather than people or events, cause our negative feelings.
Person Centred Counselling
During the course of the programme each service user will be provided with a therapist on a one to one basis where they can establish a warm, accepting and safe environment in which the individual feels free to talk about issues and gain insight into them. This is a non directive therapy and gives the service user an opportunity to embrace exploration with their lives.
The service user is provided with up to 8 weeks of counselling from week 16 on the programme.
Spirituality & Lived Experience
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Minnesota
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Meditation
Minnesota
THOMAS prides itself as a total abstinence community; it embraces the 12 Step way of life in a realistic and logical way. It shares the lived experience of people who have admitted their lives were powerless over drug and alcohol addiction (Step1) and how life can become manageable by living a programme and working the steps.
Service users engage in a group dynamic programme facilitated by ex-addicts – trained in the THOMAS CULTURE with several years lived experience of total abstinence. These facilitators also provide individual key work for each service user.
Meditation
Our meditation therapy provides a claiming effect on the mind. It is a discipline that engenders a higher state of
consciousness. It’s an important part of our therapeutic process as it provides space and relaxation for the mind to unwind. Several techniques are used to persuade peaceful living.
Creative Art Therapy
By experimenting with paint and clay, using movement and sound, it is often possible to tell the issue without using too many words. This method seeks to provide a variety of methods to access feelings in a safe effective way.
It’s a creative process to discover where blocks and inhibitions lie and free up energy to express and experience
life more fully.
Community Living
The THOMAS therapeutic community in itself is a lived experience. It reflects personal and social responsibility. Peer influence is paramount as it holds the group dynamic together where people learn and assimilate social norms and develop more effective social skills.
Its community includes treatment staff in recovery as key agents of change.