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Indiana Counseling Association Presents The Conversations that Shape Us Conference: What You Wish Other Mental Health Counselors Understood

Shame Is Not a Motivator: What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About Recovery

Rachel Goodwin, LMHC, LCAC
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Date & Time

Learning Objectives

Participants will be able to:

  • Distinguish between guilt and shame and explain why shame-based approaches are neurobiologically and clinically counterproductive in SUD treatment.

  • Identify at least four ways shame is inadvertently reinforced through common clinical language, treatment structures, and provider assumptions.

  • Apply shame-resilient communication strategies in group facilitation, individual sessions, and treatment planning documentation.

Educational Goal

The educational goal of this workshop is for attendees to distinguish between guilt and shame and why shame-based approaches are counterproductive to Substance Use Disorder treatment. They will learn the ways shame is inadvertently reinforced and how to apply shame-resilient communication strategies.

Description

Shame is one of the most powerful drivers of addiction and relapse — and one of the most common tools still embedded in how we treat it. From “hitting bottom” mythology to moral failure narratives, behavioral health has inherited a shame-based framework that contradicts the neuroscience and relational research it claims to follow. This session draws on shame resilience theory and SUD treatment frameworks to examine how shame shows up in provider language, treatment culture, and system design — often invisibly. Participants will explore what shame-resilient care actually looks like in group facilitation, treatment planning, and everyday clinical language.

Target Audience

  • Addiction Professional
  • Counselor
  • Marriage & Family Therapist
  • Psychologist
  • Social Worker

Presenters

Rachel Goodwin, LMHC, LCAC
Rachel Goodwin, LCPC, LMHC, LCAC, CEDS, is an experienced Clinical Director and Psychotherapist with a demonstrated history in the mental healthcare industry, having provided services across every level of care — inpatient, residential, partial hospitalization, intensive outpatient, and outpatient — at organizations including SunCloud Health and Alera Via Healing Centers. She has specialty training in eating disorders, addiction, and trauma treatment. Rachel is skilled in adolescent and adult therapy, various addictions recovery models, DBT, CPT, and is EMDR trained.