TPC Journal V7, Issue 4 - FULL ISSUE

326 The Professional Counselor | Volume 7, Issue 4 able to relate to my clients because I haven’t experienced some of the things that they have, like an addiction.” Participant 10 discussed the benefits from the abstinence assignment as, “by doing something as simple as this, I feel that I am in a much better place to help clients.” Other participants described that empathy helped them deepen their understanding and care for those in their close family who had gone through addictions. Participant 17 reported, “I have personally observed my father going through his journey in alcohol and opiate addictions. I have felt the pain, suffering, frustration, and struggle as a family member, which makes this assignment very personal for me.” Participants reported these empathetic gains as important because they provided new perspectives on the lives of persons with addictions. Gaining empathy helped move participants closer to understanding persons with addictions as human beings who were attempting to steer themselves away from alcohol and drugs. This helped them to combat previous biased views of persons with addictions and altered previous attitudes and beliefs that are ineffective in helping this population. Discussion This study explored the pedagogy behind an abstinence assignment and the experiences of students who participated. Specifically, the researchers wished to discover (1) What, if any, were the empathetic experiences of students concerning clients with addictions; (2) how was the concept of craving experienced and made meaningful by participants; (3) how did students find ways to deal effectively with cravings and abstinence through the project; and (4) what were the elements of the learning process for participants completing the abstinence assignment? A discussion of the research questions, including analysis of the themes, follows. Empathetic Experiences of Students Addressing bias and negative stigma associated with persons with addictions is a major aim of most addictions courses, as negative stigma has contributed to lower therapeutic outcomes for clients struggling with addictions (McLellan et al., 2000). This study explored the empathetic understanding of students completing the abstinence assignment and found that participants reported accessing empathy for persons struggling with addictions through experiences of craving, triggers, and relapse. Moreover, students empathized with the pain and suffering that abstaining produced and described the needed patience of treating clients with addictions. This empathy was fostered through an experiential understanding of craving, which is better explored within the second research question of how students found ways to effectively deal with cravings and abstinence via the project. Experiences of Craving An essential element of Kolb’s Experiential Learning Model (Kolb, 1984) is concrete experience. A concrete experience is a learning stage that involves having students experience a phenomenon physically, mentally, and psychologically. Although the experiences from the abstinence assignment are only approximations of individuals with addictions, they may still be important, as they provide students insight into withdrawal, craving, triggers, relapse, shame, and justification concerning relapse. This study’s first theme supports the learning objective that students experienced genuine addiction-related experiences. Students were cognizant that their experiences may not have perfectly compared to individuals addicted to drugs and alcohol; however, they stated often that the abstinence assignment produced suffering and uncertainty over their ability to abstain successfully from their chosen substances or behaviors. Students also reflected upon how they learned to cope through effective and ineffective ways with the experiences of craving and relapse. This was encouraging, as it provided students with strategies on how to help future clients during recovery.