Andrew Tatarsky · On-demand workshop
Risk enters the room
A client is using more than they were. They arrive impaired. Something they tell you makes clear the risk is real. This short workshop is about what to do in that moment — how to assess risk honestly, respond without overreacting, and keep the person engaged in treatment rather than pushing them out of it.
The clinical tension
The moment the stakes change
“Do I need to hospitalize?” “If I don’t set an ultimatum and something happens, am I responsible?” Fear can quickly push a clinician toward a demand or intervention that protects against anxiety without necessarily making the patient safer. This workshop offers another path: name the risk directly, put real safeguards in place, and keep the therapeutic relationship intact.
What you’ll learn
Practical risk work inside ordinary therapy
- Assess acute risk without turning the session into an interrogation
- Talk about overdose prevention and naloxone as ordinary clinical care
- Offer safer-use information without implying that continued use is safe
- Recognize when a higher level of care is actually indicated
- Build a crisis plan the patient is realistically likely to use
- Manage your own anxiety so it doesn’t begin directing the treatment
The focus is on language, stance, and interventions you can bring into your next session.
Who this is for
For clinicians treating substance use in ordinary practice
The patient
Their use is escalating, they sometimes arrive impaired, or they are taking risks they don’t fully recognize.
The dilemma
You’re trying to decide when risk requires action — and when acting too aggressively may make things worse.
The goal
Make the situation safer without losing the honesty and relationship that make treatment possible.
About Andrew Tatarsky
Dr. Andrew Tatarsky is one of the leading innovators in addiction treatment and the developer of Integrative Harm Reduction Psychotherapy. He is the author of Harm Reduction Psychotherapy: A New Treatment for Drug and Alcohol Problems and has spent more than three decades helping clinicians work more effectively with substance use, compulsive behavior, and emotional suffering.
He holds a PhD in Clinical Psychology from the City University of New York and is a Professor of Professional Practice at The New School.
A framework for the moments that feel hardest to judge
Most clinicians were never trained for these situations. This workshop gives you a way to assess the risk, speak directly about it, and make thoughtful decisions without losing the treatment in the process.
