Adult Treatment Planner
22: Legal Conflicts
SNOMED Terms
- Adjustment disorder
- Adult antisocial behaviour
- Alcohol dependence
- Antisocial personality disorder
- Cannabis dependence
- Cocaine dependence
- No diagnosis on Axis I
- Person with feared complaint, no diagnosis made
- Polysubstance dependence
Goals
- Accept and responsibly respond to the mandates of court.
- Understand how chemical dependence has contributed to legal problems and accept the need for recovery.
- Accept responsibility for decisions and actions that have led to arrests and develop higher moral and
ethical standards to govern behavior.
- Internalize the need for treatment so as to change values, thoughts, feelings, and behavior to a more
prosocial position.
- Become a responsible citizen in good standing within the community.
Behavioral Definitions
- Legal charges pending.
- On parole or probation subsequent to legal charges.
- Legal pressure has been central to the decision to enter treatment.
- A history of criminal activity leading to numerous incarcerations.
- Most arrests are related to alcohol or drug abuse.
- Pending divorce accompanied by emotional turmoil.
- Fear of loss of freedom due to current legal charges.
Diagnoses
- Cannabis Dependence
- Cocaine Dependence
- Alcohol Dependence
- Polysubstance Dependence
- Kleptomania
- Adult Antisocial Behavior
- Adjustment Disorder With Disturbance of Conduct
- Antisocial Personality Disorder
- Diagnosis Deferred
- No Diagnosis
Objectives and Interventions
- Describe the behavior that led to current involvement with the court system.
- Explore the client's behavior that led to legal conflicts and assess whether it fits a pattern
of
antisocial behavior (see Antisocial Behavior chapter in this Planner).
- Obtain counsel and meet to make plans for resolving legal conflicts.
- Encourage and facilitate the client in meeting with an attorney to discuss plans for resolving
legal
issues.
- Make regular contact with court officers to fulfill sentencing requirements.
- Monitor and encourage the client to keep appointments with court officers.
- Verbalize the role drug and/or alcohol abuse has played in legal problems.
- Explore how chemical dependence may have contributed to the client's legal conflicts.
- Confront the client's denial of chemical dependence by reviewing the various negative
consequences
of addiction that have occurred in his/her life.
- Maintain sobriety in accordance with rules of probation/parole.
- Reinforce the client's need for a plan for recovery and sobriety as a means of improving
judgment
and control over behavior (see Chemical Dependence chapter in this Planner).
- Monitor and reinforce the client's sobriety, using physiological measures to confirm, if
advisable.
- Verbalize and accept responsibility for the series of decisions and actions that eventually led to
illegal
activity.
- Assist the client in clarification of values that allow him/her to act illegally.
- Confront the client's denial and projection of responsibility onto others for his/her own
illegal
actions.
- State values that affirm behavior within the boundaries of the law.
- Assist the client in clarification of values that allow him/her to act illegally.
- Teach the values associated with respecting legal boundaries and the rights of others as well as
the
consequences of crossing these boundaries.
- Verbalize how the emotional state of anger, frustration, helplessness, or depression has contributed to
illegal behavior.
- Probe the client's negative emotional states that could contribute to his/her illegal
behavior.
- Refer the client for ongoing counseling to deal with emotional conflicts and antisocial impulses
(see Antisocial Behavior, Anger Management, or Depression chapters in this Planner).
- Identify the causes for the negative emotional state that was associated with illegal actions.
- Explore causes for the client's underlying negative emotions that consciously or unconsciously
fostered his/her criminal behavior.
- Interpret the client's antisocial behavior that is linked to current or past emotional conflicts
to
foster insights and resolution.
- Identify and replace cognitive distortions that foster antisocial behavior.
- Assess and clarify the client's distorted cognitive belief structures that foster illegal
behavior.
- Restructure the client's distorted cognitions to those that foster keeping of legal boundaries
and
respecting the rights of others.
- Attend an anger control group.
- Refer the client to an impulse or anger management group.
- Identify ways to meet life needs (i.e., social and financial) without resorting to illegal activities.
- Explore with the client ways he/she can meet social and financial needs without involvement with
illegal activity (e.g., employment, further education or skill training, spiritual enrichment
group).
- Educate the client on the difference between antisocial and prosocial behaviors; assist him/her
in
writing a list of ways to show respect for the law, help others, and work regularly.
- Attend class to learn how to successfully seek employment.
- Refer the client to an ex-offender center for assistance in obtaining employment.
- Verbalize an understanding of the importance of honesty in earning the trust of others and esteem for
self.
- Help the client understand the importance of honesty in earning the trust of others and
self-respect.
- Develop and implement a plan for restitution for illegal activity.
- Assist the client in seeing the importance of restitution to self-worth; help him/her develop a
plan
to provide restitution for the results of his/her behavior.
- Review the client's implementation of his/her restitution plan; reinforce success and redirect
for
failure.
Index