recovery

at RtW, we approach recovery from a particular vantage point, with specific assumptions, which are:

Philosophy:

  • We support harm reduction as well as abstinence-based approaches to recovery.

  • We also support “full recovery” as well “in the process of recovery” approaches.

  • We are committed to an individualized approach to treatment for each client and work collaboratively to arrive at what might be most effective for your recovery goals. We do not subscribe to only one philosophy of treatment at Ride The Wave. We also rely on best practice standards of care to guide ethical treatment recommendations as you progress in your recovery or face challenges in your recovery.

  • We wish to support clients in recovering not just from discrete problematic behaviors but recovering from the underlying challenges that may be driving those behaviors.

  • We wish to support clients in recovering their innate wisdom, innate intuition, inherent rights and precious sense of worth.

Assumptions:

  • Each person is contextualized within an ecological reality: self, family, microcultures, subcultures, macrocultures, society, etc. Identity, power, privilege, and oppression impact our bodies and minds, play a role in our mental health challenges and play a role in our recovery journeys.

  • The colonized West is indoctrinated by heteronormative, white supremacist, transmisic, ableist, patriarchal, capitalist objectification of human lives and this indoctrination influences mental health challenges and recovery journeys. This indoctrination intersects with the mental health industrial complex and interrogating this intersection is necessary for mental health providers at RtW.

  • How people have been living their lives in eating disorders, other process addictions, and substance addictions has been causing them suffering in some way.

  • There are other choices - always - for how to live one's life that are not destructive or that are less destructive. Even if nothing and no one else around a person changes, every person has a say in their own mindset and approach to their own life - within an ecological model, this is radical. We hold the dialectic that systems of oppression must change and are unjust, even as we work with clients to identify routes to personal power and agency within real structures.

  • Not only is it possible to reduce suffering, it also possible to increase joy. This is radical in an ecological model.

  • Recovery happens in honest connection and collaboration with others in balance with rest, healthy boundaries, regaining intuition and self-sovereignty in the midst of sacred community.

  • Recovery is learning to discern between impulse and intuition, between urge and wisdom, between self-destruction and self-nourishment.

  • Feelings are entirely separate and distinct from actions; feelings need not be feared, though actions may need to change. This is up for your curiosity, observation, and decision-making.

  • It is possible to live a life of joy and freedom.

  • Therapists are not all-knowing beings who are any better than clients; therapists are fallible people, just like everyone else, available to teach you some skills and thought processes that may help you change your thinking, behaviors and life in ways you would like to

  • We find the answers together.

  • It is possible to heal from your past. It is possible to live in the present moment. To thrive in it.  

  • It is possible to Ride The Wave of your life, skillfully navigating the ups and downs with acceptance, peace, laughter, and curiosity. 

  • No one can tell you who you are. If you feel lost and unsure of who to be as you embark on a recovery journey, at Ride The Wave, our highest goal is to hold space for your Self to emerge.