Francis Lickerish PGCert, PGDip, CAC

Supporting loved ones into treatment

Francis Lickerish has been an addiction counsellor for over 20 years, specialising in working with families in addiction. He has run family programmes and services in Clouds House, The Priory Roehampton, North London Priory, Farm Place and Nightingale Hospital London. He runs workshops in schools and colleges on the nature of addiction and how it can be managed in such systems. He also works internationally in America, South Africa, Dubai and Spain as a consultant and an interventionist.

He is in the process of writing a book on the historical and social context of addiction.

Francis will co-present with Patrick Maxwell.

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.