Test Your Interventionist

Make sure your interventionist can answer all of these questions. If not, call Joe Terhaar

  • What does the professional intervention literature guide in adapting the intervention process when addressing the addiction of a woman? From research, who wrote the first seminal article?
  • What does the professional intervention literature guide regarding adaptations for interventions with an older adult? Joe Terhaar has taught college classes on this topic.
  • What does the professional intervention literature guide regarding adaptations for process addictions?
  • Can your interventionist verify with references the number of years he/she claims to have been in practice providing interventions? Some locally cannot.
  • Can your interventionist cite the research for which intervention strategies are effective? (Or, is he/she just operating on hunches? Your family deserves better than hunches.)
  • Have your interventionist list the ten strategies of intervention and detail which should be used in each special case.
  • Have your interventionist name the nationally recognized trainers he/she has mentored under. Or, did your interventionist simply watch TV and then go out and try to do interventions, as some have in Spokane?
    (If your intervention claims to have trained under Joe Terhaar be sure to check wIth him as some are making false claims regarding this.
  • What specific training has he/she had in the last year to stay updated on advances in intervention practice?
  • Under what circumstances should an invitational intervention not be attempted first?
  • Has your interventionist provided formal and recognized training to psychologists, social workers, and chemical dependency professionals in the last two years, or is he/she not an expert in family intervention? Joe Terhaar is an expert and has conducted these trainings. See his curriculum vitae.
  • What specific training has he/she had in the last year for process addiction interventions? (Some who provide interventions do not even know what process addictions are.)
  • What national conferences or nationally recognized trainings has your interventionist attended recently to stay updated on recent advances?
  • Is your interventionist nationally recognized as a practitioner, trainer, curriculum author of intervention, and researcher? Only Joe Terhaar has these distinctions in the entire Pacific Northwest.
  • Who did NAADAC (the nation’s largest professional organization for chemical dependency counselors) send a letter of admonishment to regarding the practice of intervention? (not Joe Terhaar)
  • Many people who conduct interventions have no formal intervention credential.
  • And finally, ask your interventionist to name the 29 research–grounded guiding principles of family intervention. Please do not trust your family’s health to someone who operates on hunches.