Harm Reduction Psychotherapy

Harm reduction is a movement that began in Europe in the 1970s as a public alternative to the moral and criminal models of addressing problematic substance use. The essence of this philosophy is to reduce the harmful consequences of substance use to both the individual and to society without requiring abstinence as a goal or precondition of treatment—a requirement that exists in many traditional mainstream treatment approaches to this day. Harm reduction has now spread throughout most of the world and is part of the national drug policy of most developed countries, except the United States.

Harm reduction psychotherapy (HRP) is a relatively recent and almost uniquely U.S. invention that reflects the encounter of psychotherapists who were working with psychodynamic and/or cognitive behavioral approaches to addiction ...