The Johnson Institute has addressed barriers to addiction prevention, treatment and recovery since the 1960s. The organization grew from a church study group at St. Martin’s Episcopal Church in Minneapolis. Rev. Vernon Johnson, Irene Whitney and others with personal experience in recovery, challenged the idea that an alcoholic could not get help until he or she naturally reached a “bottom” – a state of surrender usually occurring after family, job, finances or other supports had evaporated. They developed a method of “intervention” that penetrated the barrier of denial and helped the alcoholic to accept professional care.
These founders, with the further help of Irene’s husband, Minneapolis industrialist Wheelock Whitney, crafted a mission for Johnson Institute that would continue to address barriers to recovery. The work has included training thousands of counselors around the world, pioneering in workplace “employee assistance” systems, and addressing family and youth aspects of addiction disease.
Today’s landmark technology in addiction treatment, known as Motivational Interviewing, builds on the early Johnson insights. “Johnson explicitly emphasized the importance of empathic listening, and described a form of counseling that is more compassionate than aggressive,” according to the classic text by William R. Miller and Stephen Rollnick (1991). “The goal of the intervention,” Johnson is quoted, “is to have him (the chemically dependent) see and accept enough reality so that, however grudgingly, he can accept in turn his need for help.”
While the Johnson Institute no longer provides intervention services, we still strongly believes that professional interventions are an integral early step in helping addicted people, and their families, begin the recovery process. Below is a list of resources and individuals who specialize in interventions. To learn more, please contact them directly.
Addiction Intervention Resources, Inc.
Andrew Wainwright
National Call Center: (800) 561-8158
Intervention
Walter Scanlon, Ph.D.
201 East 35th Street, 6A
New York, New York 10016-4257
(212) 683-8419
intervention@invention.net
Southworth Associates
Interventions, Consulting & Monitoring
Office: (800) 386-1695
Crisis: (866) 460-9014
International: (208) 323-9555
Information Resource Center
888-421-4321
Addiction Recovery Professionals, Inc.
info@arprecovery.com
Toll Free: 866-435-7016
Local: (651) 209-7670