Patrick Maxwell MBACP

Supporting loved ones into treatment - and supporting yourself

Patrick Maxwell is lead therapist – addictions at Nightingale Hospital London. His professional qualifications, accreditation and memberships include: Registered mental nurse course, Diploma in Addiction Studies, Diploma in Counselling, BSc (Hons) Counselling & Psychotherapy, Post Graduate Psychology Diploma with Merit, EMDR Training Parts 1 & 2, MBACP (Accred), MFDAP.

He has had clinical and management experience in the NHS and private mental health settings for the last 30 years, initially as a psychiatric nurse and then as a psychotherapist specialising in addiction. He has worked extensively on a dual diagnosis programme treating clients with mental health disorders and addiction within acute and community settings. He is experienced in supporting clients with various psychological difficulties including substance abuse, mood difficulties, interpersonal issues and trauma. And he provides relapse prevention along with short and long-term therapy.

Patrick will co-present with Francis Lickerish.

PRESENTATION

“They tried to make me go to rehab but I said no, no, no”:
A whole-family approach to recovery, supporting loved ones into treatment and supporting yourself

Watching a loved one struggle with addiction while feeling powerless to help is one of the most painful experiences a family can face. The instinct is to focus everything on getting them into treatment. But what if that focus, however well-intentioned, is only part of what’s needed? Addiction involves the family system not only one person. It becomes the organising principle of the entire household, drawing every member into its orbit. Family members often find themselves experiencing fear, grief and helplessness living with active addiction. This session holds both realities at once. It offers evidence-informed guidance on how families can respond to a loved one’s addiction in ways that are more likely to encourage treatment-seeking, while also making the case that family recovery is not simply a means to that end: it is something families need and deserve. Drawing on clinical insight and real-world experience, explore the dynamics that addiction activates within family systems, what helps, what doesn’t, and what lasting change can look like when the whole system experiences a shift.
Learning objectives
At the end of this presentation, delegates will be able to:
  • Identify how addiction impacts a family system: Recognising that addiction functions as an organising principle within a family, and that everyone is drawn into dynamics that require their own acknowledgement and support.
  • Empowering the family to begin to set healthy boundaries, primarily for the well being of the family: Encouraging the family to step away from the powers of the addiction, with the likely collateral of increasing dissonance for the addict and making it increasingly difficult for the addiction to continue.
  • Distinguish between family involvement as a tool for change and family recovery as a destination in itself: Understanding why supporting families to find their own recovery is vital, independent of the addicted person’s choices.