After spending over 30 years in the psychotherapy field I continue to be frustrated by the limited perception the field brings to working with people around recovery from addiction processes. The profession holds many preconceived notions and brings a stigma to these clients, particularly if that client happens to be a helping professional themselves. 

I have encountered a ‘cone of silence’ in the clinical field around acknowledging that addiction, whether to substances, people or beliefs is a part of the experience of being human.  

There is a continuum of addiction and every one of us, practitioner or client, is on it. To the extent that therapists deny their own issues and fail to acknowledge their recovery efforts, their clinical successes will be limited by this lack of humanity.  

Regardless of their certifications in various modalities, CBT, EMDR, Somatic Experiencing, even EFT/tapping, keeping their personal experiences rigidly closed off from their professional work results in a failure of the authenticity and vulnerability that clients truly value. 

This thin veil of professional perfectionism is one that kept me trapped for many years.  

The field-wide belief that a therapist needs to have their ‘act together’, to always know the ‘right intervention’ all the time, to unfailingly live up to some unreachable standard kept me feeling inadequate and ashamed throughout most of my early professional years. It’s energetically exhausting, it’s impossible and just not helpful to anyone’s recovery journey.

I believe it’s one of the factors that keeps the clinical field stuck in a perception that addiction is the problem. The solution then is to get rid of the addiction, then everything will be fine. That is simply not true.  

Conscious EFT is part of the revolution that sees the addiction as a symptom, in fact as a solution, to what is actually the problem  

Perhaps that’s one of the reasons that led Maia Szalavitz to say in her book The Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction that,  

“So many of our existing treatments (for addictions) simply don’t work.” 

How refreshing to sit down with Candace Fox, NeftTi graduate who specializes in bringing this fresh perspective to her client work. As an Emotional Success™ Coach Specialist and Master Conscious EFT™ Practitioner she isn’t constrained by the limitations of the traditional therapeutic model.

She speaks to her own ongoing journey of recovery and the profound life transformation it has required of her.  With courage and bravery she shares with us how she integrates her personal and professional experience in a way that validates and inspires those who know her.  

I loved when she said, ‘Healing is a verb.’ and ‘This work doesn’t have to be so hard.’ Agreed.