Counselling
Finding solutions together
The Grüner Kreis offers a wide range of counselling, therapy and rehabilitation options. A multi-professional team makes possible nationwide counselling and care for people who are addicted or at risk of addiction and for those affected and their relatives.
This applies both to substance-related addictions (such as drugs, alcohol etc.) as well as non-substance related addictions (such as pathological gambling).
We are pleased to provide anonymous and free advice. With existing addiction problems our experts will inform you quickly and comprehensively about possible therapy paths. We help you to find the suitable solution.
Counselling for those affected
Clarification
Individual mentoring and support
As part of outpatient clarification, those affected receive individual support and mentoring as required. This takes place through the staff of the Counselling & care team or the staff of the outpatient counselling and care centres. Counsellors are available for those affected throughout the country. Discussions take place in hospitals, prisons, social-work institutions and the advice centres of the Grüner Kreis association, and wherever people seeking assistance may be.
Our service is aimed at
- People with substance-related addictive illnesses (legal and illegal)
- People with non-substance related addictive illnesses (e.g. pathological gambling)
- Addicted adults and young people
- Older addicts
- Addicted parents and mothers and their children
- People with comorbid illnesses
- Clients from Vienna who would like to undergo a partial or complete withdrawal
- Clients from Vienna who would like to undergo alcohol rehabilitation
- People with a judicial order (§35 und § 39 SMG, § 50/51 StGB, § 173 StPO, § 179 StVG)
- Relatives
Anamnesis and therapy model
Here the state of health and current living conditions are established in the form of an anamnesis (psychological, psychiatric, somatic, social problems, school education and occupational qualifications etc.). The motivation for therapy is clarified and the appropriate therapy model (outpatient therapy, inpatient short- or long-term therapy, substitution therapy or the admission to special programmes) is determined. Partial or complete withdrawal and alcohol rehabilitation (currently only for clients in Vienna) are carried out or withdrawal places are provided and the assumption of costs is clarified etc.
Objective
The objective is to jointly draw up an individual plan of measures and therapy and for mentoring through the necessary subsequent steps. The appropriate offer of therapy will be selected according to the individual needs and the existing problems.
Preparation
The focus is on the preparation of an inpatient stay or on life in the therapeutic community and support in the arrangement of the necessary steps for this. .
Preparation & Admission
Those concerned are prepared for the opportunities and conditions of the respective therapy form in regular consultations. For this, general medical and psychiatric clarification is carried out and the dosages of any substitution medication or other medicaments are discussed. Social workers help in managing personal affairs (living situation, dealing with bureaucracy, domestic pets, post diversion, health insurance etc.). In this phase, clients with their main place of residence in Vienna also receive clinical psychological health care and/or psychotherapy. After written confirmation of the assumption of costs and after completion of the inpatient preparation clients can be admitted as inpatients
Admission
There is the possibility of physical partial or complete withdrawal or alcohol rehabilitation as an inpatient (currently only for clients in Vienna) in the Sonderkrankenanstalt Marienhof or the possibility of being admitted to an abstinence-oriented inpatient institution. In this case, complete physical withdrawal must have taken place as an outpatient or inpatient before admission. After a successful partial withdrawal it is also possible to be admitted to a substitution-supported inpatient setting. Here too a subsequent substitution reduction is possible.
Exclusion criteria
Exclusion criteria are acute suicidal tendencies and more complex cases that, owing to their psychiatric illness or somatic complaints, necessitate prior therapy/rehabilitation in a specialist hospital.
Those affected from Vienna
For clients with their main place of residence in Vienna the outpatient preparation takes place with the staff of the multi-professional counselling team at Counselling & Care Centre Vienna 11 & Vienna 3.
Those affected from other provinces
Clients from other provinces or clients referred to us by the judiciary are counselled by staff from the multi-professional counselling team in the outpatient counselling & care cenres in Vienna, Linz, Graz, Klagenfurt and Wiener Neustadt.
Counselling for relatives
Support, inclusion
People in the family circle of addicts are greatly affected by their relatives’ illness. The Grüner Kreis therefore strives to support addicts’ relatives and to include them systematically in the therapy process.
Involuntary deterioration
The path from recognition of the first symptoms of illness to the acceptance of help is often a long one. Frequently relatives feel guilty and responsible for the development of the addictive illness. Individual family members often assume the heaviest burdens and attempt to hide the illness and its consequences from the outside world. They look after addicts’ affairs and become increasingly entangled in their problems. In this way relatives slip into a co-dependency and unwillingly contribute to the maintenance of the addictive behaviour. The responsibility for the addiction is taken from the addicts – often they see no reason to change their behaviour.
We help to help
Relatives are offered specialist support and counselling in our counselling and care centres. In therapeutically mentored relatives’ groups there is the opportunity to discuss with one another, to receive information about the illness and therapy/rehabilitation, to understand the internal family background for the emergence of addiction and to learn to find new paths in contact with the addicts.
Information
Family members of inpatient clients of the Grüner Kreis are regularly informed about associated support (family-members days in inpatient institutions, possibilities of individual and family discussions, relatives’ groups in the outpatient counselling and care centres) as well as about external self-help groups.