Clinician, best-selling author, keynote speaker, and interventionist, Dr. Louise Stanger joins today’s show to share the work she’s doing to help others through strength-based solutions and invitational change. Dr. Louise takes the audience through a typical intervention at her clinic, All About Interventions, and speaks to her mission to effect systemic change in the world of mental health. Dr. Louise opens up about dealing with the complexities of family dynamics and relationships and the approaches she utilizes to help them heal.

Key Takeaways

01:24 – Dr. Louise Stanger shares her passion for service and mentoring others

08:01 – Transitioning from professor to interventionist

14:43 – Dr. Louise takes the audience through her typical intervention process at All About Interventions

20:37 – Dealing with the complexities of family relationships

25:53 – Family Mapping and Dr. Louise’s latest book, Addiction in the Family

30:47 – Dr. Flowers thanks Dr. Louise for joining the show and for the inspiring work she continues to do

Resources Mentioned

JFlowers Health Institute – https://jflowershealth.com

JFlowers Health Institute Contact – (713) 783-6655

Subscribe on your favorite player: https://understanding-the-human-condition.captivate.fm/listen

Dr. Louise’s Website – https://www.allaboutinterventions.com

Dr. Louise’s LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/in/drlouisestanger

Dr. Louise’s YouTube Video – Dr. Louise Stanger – Interventionist, Clinician, Keynote Speaker

Dr. Louise’s Number – (619) 507-1699

Look for Dr. Louise’s Interview on Katie Couric’s Podcast ‘Next Question’ –

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/next-question-with-katie-couric/id1134154895

Dr. Louise’s Books:

Falling Up: A Memoir of Renewal – https://www.amazon.com/Falling-Up-Renewal-Louise-Stanger/dp/0996761403

Addiction in the Family: Helping Families Navigate Challenges, Emotions, and Recovery – https://www.amazon.com/Addiction-Family-Families-Navigate-Challenges/dp/164739225X

Learn to Thrive (Free Download) – https://www.allaboutinterventions.com/learn-to-thrive

Silver Tsunami (Free Download) – https://www.allaboutinterventions.com/aging-and-addiction/

The Definitive Guide to Addiction Intervention: A Collective Strategy – https://www.allaboutinterventions.com/books

**The views and opinions expressed by our guests are those of the individual and do not necessarily reflect those of J. Flowers Health Institute. Any content provided by our co-host(s) or guests is their opinion and is not intended to reflect the philosophy and policies of J. Flowers Health Institute itself. Nor is it intended to malign any recovery method, religion, ethnic group, club, organization, company, individual, or anyone or anything.

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Dr. Louise Stanger – Invitational Change Is Possible

Being Of Service

I’m excited to have my bestie, Dr. Louise Stanger, with us.

I am so excited to be back in this beautiful setting and be with you.

I am so glad you flew in for this to pay us a visit and to work with some families welcome to Houston. You are home away from home.

Mr. Wadis always says, “When are you moving?” I go, “You’ll have to wait and see.”

Everybody knows you, but I want to read your bio to the audience.

Thank you.

Dr. Louise Stanger focuses on strength-based solutions and invitational change. Dr. Stanger is an Ivy League award winner, the 2019 Interventionist of the Year from DB Resources in London, and McLean Hospital, an affiliate of Harvard. She is an educated social worker, popular author, number one bestselling author on Amazon, and internationally renowned clinician, interventionist, speaker, and expert on mental health, addiction, process disorders, and chronic pain. You and I have had some wonderful times with chronic pain.

I love working with you. Our cases are never easy. They are always so complicated. What I so appreciate is how we each bring super sleuth characteristics to solve a problem.

That’s what I say we are like Sherlock Holmes.

What we are after is systemic change, not just for the identified loved one who is the patient at Flowers, but also for the family. Without the families changing as well, our identified loved ones won’t have the social support and scaffolding so necessary to thrive.

I want to ask you about the human condition. What is the one question that no one ever asks you that you want someone to ask you?

They are all afraid to ask me. It’s no secret that I am seasoned, and every once in a while, especially when I’m living now, people say, “Why do you still work? Why aren’t you playing pickleball every day?” For me, there’s also good evidence that I don’t think, I could ever stop working if I can ever be still of service or mentor to others. Perhaps after these several years, maybe my role might change because I believe in creating a legacy, but I love to work. I am so passionate about what I do. I’m so honored that families entrust me with their care, and I can help mentor other young people as well in the field so that they can take the reins of leadership.

“I don’t think, for me, I could ever stop working if I can ever still be of service or a mentor to others.”

You do an amazing job at that. The other thing you do an amazing job at is dressing well. You walked into the office and everybody was like, “Who is that model walking in?”

A long time ago, as a professor or a national presenter, there was a person named Jim Gray, who who told you that you needed to dress for success. In Twelve Step, they say, you need to suit up and show up and so knowing how positively magnificent the interior design of J Flowers is, plus knowing the intricacies because I have had the opportunity to work with your team for a long time, over many years one could only dress for success to come here.

Thank you and you always dress for success anyway. Back to the question about retiring. My grandfather was a physician, and he retired at 92. He was in perfect health at 92 years old. Within a year, his health declined when he retired. It declined so much that he passed away about a year and a month later from retiring, and I do believe that had a specific effect on his death.

There’s a lot of evidence out there that says people who retire tend to feel more lonely and more depressed, not too sure what they are going to do. The adage was at 65 you collected your Social Security and retired. For me, when you take a look at some of the icons, Grandma Moses, famous artists, and famous heads of state, learning never ends. It’s when I start repeating myself too much when you have to help me out. With aging, you have to be ready to stand by and let other people go. I always have that philosophy of learning, which I got from a gentleman named Sheldon Kopp. He wrote a book a long time ago, If You Meet the Buddha on the Road, Kill Him!.

He was a fabulous psychotherapist, like you, and he was always talking about celebrities in the newspaper. What he meant was that we are this little speck along the way, and the gift that our clients and I was a professor, our students, or the staff that we mentor, if they can far surpass us, then we have done a great job. I hope that somehow or other, a legacy I could leave would be that I was able, whether it was clients, families, or other people I got to mentor, or other organizations I got to work with, to leave them in a better place.

I know that from personal experience with you. You continued for many years. You have a personal relationship with one of your professors in San Diego, and you are mentoring so many people, but that was one of your mentors. Is he still living?

He’s still living. Dr. Glenn Haworth is probably someone that you and I, both fall in love with. He is 96 years old. He is losing his eyesight, yet he sees with a clarity that only I could imagine. I go and visit him in La Jolla where he lives, and I’m his emergency contact. If he falls or slips, my heart stops, but he has a way and a chuckle about him that tells you he’s found meaning in the world. He’s very existential in his stance. Whatever he is, he finds joy, and for me, that is the gift of Dr. Glenn Haworth.

Career Transition

You’ve been a trailblazer in your own life. You were a professor, you were a grant-writing professor, an NIH-awarded professor, and you’ve received many millions of dollars in research that you’ve done. Then you got into this industry. How did that transition happen for you?

The truth of the matter is, that in my textbook, I wrote The Definitive Guide to Addiction Intervention. Someone said, “How did you ever get involved with interventions?” They asked, “What course did you take?” I snorted and laughed. Back in the ’80s at San Diego State University, alcohol and other drug issues were skyrocketing across the world, especially on college campuses. There was a law mandating that social workers, psychologists, and MFTs needed a semester class in substance abuse.

To put it in the context of time, this was when Betty Ford was alive. Betty Ford was starting in Palm Desert. I was given the luxury of starting the first graduate seminar at San Diego State. Kevin McCauley was in my first class. What we would do at the time we didn’t know a lot of information is bring people into our classroom to talk. One day, and it sits in my heart, a very tall, stately gentleman came into my classroom. His name was Dr. Frank Picard. Dr. Frank Picard happened to be best friends with a gentleman named Dr. Vern Johnson. When people are teaching interventions, they forget he was the granddaddy of interventions. He was a doctor. He wrote a book, I’ll Quit Tomorrow. He talked to people when they were in the hospital.

Dr. Picard at that time was head of Springbrook, which was not owned by Hazelton but was a separate entity up in Oregon. He wrote a book that was in opposition to Vern Johnson. It was called Family Addiction. When he came in, he started talking to my class, and I was young and bright and bushy-tailed. I have no idea what happened in my class. All I know is he described my family perfectly. I grew up on a fault line of trauma five sudden deaths, death by suicide, mental health you name it, I experienced it. I got so excited. I have been an ER social worker, and very good at crisis, very good at quick assessment. I said, “I can do this. I want to do this.”

At the time, it was the old model, which was, “Hi, guess who’s here?” I didn’t feel comfortable with it, and neither did Dr. Picard. He wanted more family involvement. I decided I needed to always team up with someone else. I wasn’t going to go into a home by myself without having another talented person with me. I started doing interventions under the tutelage of Dr. Picard way before there were all these wonderful people who did intervention training. Along the way, I kept doing them.

Through the years, I was very successful at the university. I went and got a doctoral degree, decided I wanted to be an administrator, and went over to the University of San Diego. I brought in more money than they ever had in their entire life on a parent-based intervention to reduce high-risk, problematic drinking, which is a very fancy title, but I felt uncomfortable. At that time, a gentleman who was about 90 asked me if I would invite his daughter, who was slowly killing herself with alcohol and not being able to be a grandmother. It was the longest intervention I have ever done.

He hired me in August. He had to get through Thanksgiving, he wanted to do Christmas, and the day after Christmas. I loved what I was doing, and I felt like it was a different calling. I was used to creating, like you do, big macro systems. How do we reduce risk with major players across the country? I decided I would set up my own company. In those days, to make you laugh, there were Yellow Pages.

I go, “I can be first in the Yellow Pages.” I will call it AAI, All About Interventions. I love it. Then I went out and created my brochure. I was invited to go to the desert to one of the first Moments of Change conferences. It was very different because there was a lot of pay-for-plus speaking. I grew up in a referee journal world where you had to publish in JAMA, the Journal of the American Medical Association. You got pencil-whipped, you got rejected.

I was very lucky. Someone besides you invited me to speak to families. The first time I spoke to families was in Palm Beach, in a big room that looked like an aerobic studio. There were lots and lots of people there because of the conference that used to be. Somehow or other, God was good. I got a God-shot. I came home from that conference, the room was pretty packed. I spoke, had no expectations, and a big certificate came in the mail. It said, “You are the fan’s favorite speaker.” I go, “How did that happen?” I didn’t even know anyone knew my name.

That was when you were brand new to speaking in this industry. Everybody showed up, everybody fell in love with you, and your career in interventions took off.

I have always loved collaborating with you, and with J Flowers, and I believe that collaboration is the key. When it comes to interventions, I’m egoless. I always work with other talented team members. I don’t do them alone because I make no pretense that someone may fall in love with someone else or bond better with someone else, and that’s the way we help move them to change. As we deal with such complex families with such high-intensity problems, you need more than one person.

“Collaboration is the key. That’s the way we help move them to change. And, because we deal with such complex families with such high-intensity problems, you need more than one person.”

Intervention Process

Walk our audience through a typical intervention process with you at All About Interventions.

Nobody calls someone that’s called an interventionist unless their hearts are hurting. They have nagged, borrowed, pleaded, screamed, yelled, taken away money, given money, thrown someone out, let them come back in but whatever it is, their loved one is struggling. It can be with mental health. We have seen an increase in anxiety and depression. It could be learning difficulties. It can be substance abuse, which has skyrocketed. Women, for example, have had a 51% increase in substance abuse this year. It can be young men who have failed to launch. It could be because someone experienced trauma, the sudden death of someone, or they might have even had someone die from COVID, or they have been involved in the military or been a recipient of a natural disaster. There are so many different ways to do it.

When someone calls me, their hearts are hurting and they say, “This is all that we can try.” You listen and you say, “There’s hope and there’s strategy.” If they decide, I want to learn a little bit about them. I want to learn about what I call the identified loved one, and that’s what you would call your patient. Why is your heart hurting? There are three basic questions. Tell me something special about the person, tell me why your heart is hurting, and tell me what your hope is. A lot of times, you have to navigate through anger and sadness because many people are angry. People who experience mental health issues, substance abuse, or chronic pain which we have done for many clients together do things that violate value standards and annoy others.

In a long story short, we became engaged, and I used a research methodology called portraiture. I’m famous for what’s called family mapping. It’s not your ordinary genogram. Thank you. Your staff knows how to do it now because you trained me. It’s the nicest, kindest way into someone’s story. By doing that, I interview everybody individually. I ask them the same questions, but I want to learn about everyone’s life. It’s not just about the identified loved one. I want to learn about you, your grandparents, where you came from, how you grew up, the other children in the family, or someone else. What this does is provide a map, which doesn’t mean you use it all in an intervention, but it provides one of the most robust biopsychosocial you can ever get.

When you have a client come to you, they only do self-reporting, but what we have done is triangulate data. We have multiple data sources. It’s also a way to learn everything from what music someone likes to the backstory of trauma you will need to work on when you become a Flowers patient. Not in the first two weeks, but later when they go on to be your wellness client. That’s how we do it. I always work with another person, and then we put all this together. It sounds like a lot of hours, but I work in a bespoke concierge fashion. There could be 20, 30, or 40 hours, but it can be done pretty quickly in terms of back work because you only have this one opportunity.

I thought of a client we had. I have been known, audience, I hope you don’t mind there was a client here. My teammate and I were asked by a gentleman to intervene with his wife, as she had chronic pain. There was a great deal of unresolved grief because they had lost a son to an overdose. They had another daughter about to have a baby, and the husband called me to intervene with his wife. When I did the family map and everything, I said to the gentleman, “I’m sorry. Do you think you could go to Dr. Flowers first for an evaluation? I don’t think we are ready to invite your wife to change.”

He did. It was nothing less than a miracle. He came back and said he loved you. He wasn’t too sure. He said, “I went with 1 addiction and came back with 12, but I’m doing it.” Then we did some incredible family work in your offices. I will never forget it because it changed their trajectory. There was so much unresolved grief and guilt over the loss of a loved one. While we were sitting there I could still think about looking out the window and an eagle soared by. In that moment, the family found forgiveness, and transformation, and started on a different trajectory. They worked with so many wonderful clinicians and continued to work. Like in the beginning, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. I disappeared into the backdrop, but you have to know that when you are dealing with families, they are complex. They are high-acuity, and you want to help all of them. That was a great case to describe how a whole family system could change.

“We did some incredible family work in your offices. There was so much unresolved grief and guilt over the loss of a loved one. While we were sitting here, an eagle soared by. At that moment, that family got forgiveness, got transformation, and started on a different trajectory.”

Complexities Of Family Relationships

How do you explain to a family that calls and says, “I need you to do this intervention tomorrow, and it’s Thursday evening. Please come get my husband and take him to treatment. Come get my daughter and take her to treatment. Can you be here at 9:00 AM?”

I have to be honest with you. I also talk about their treatment dollars and their money because these people are desperate. You have to understand that the problem did not occur yesterday. The acuity or the anxiety is at an all-time high, and you say, so you go in and say, “I want to make this,” because you’ve now learned. They have had other treatment experiences. They are doing things. If they are psychotic, we get them 51/50 or something else. I say, don’t worry about it. We can do the intervention from the hospital, which is good, but trying to hold them back and say, “Let’s wait.”

Your treatment dollars are so important, and you’ve done this and that, and it hasn’t worked. Let’s spend a little bit of time. It won’t be tomorrow. We can take a look at our schedule. It can be next week. It’s not like you have to wait forever, but I want to be able to do due diligence. I want to make sure that I give you the three best facilities in the country that fit that profile and your pocketbook. Not everybody is alike. People appreciate that once they calm down and are ready to see it. If they are adamant, I’m not the right person. I say I’m not the right person. I’m not going to come, stand there, and show up without anything. An intervention is somewhat like a living eulogy. You want to make sure that you do it correctly and give that family, who has been struggling, the right tools to thrive.

“An intervention is somewhat like a living eulogy. And you want to make sure that you do that correctly. And you want to give that family who’s been struggling the right tools so they can thrive.”

You want to be precise and methodical in how you do it. It’s amazing that you don’t just say, “Yes, I will be there in the morning.” You walk away from an intervention before you say yes.

I do a very bespoke concierge fashion. Shane Anderson, Jeff Merrick, who’s an attorney, Adam and Jenny Finley, David Malow, and some others, like Natasha, Silverbell, and Max Ezrin from Youth Prevention. Each one of them has a different skill and approach. You want to make sure you are doing the next best thing for people and that you are the best fit. If you are not, you need to walk away. The rates of substance abuse and mental health issues are exploding across the United States, so there should be enough work for everybody. What I like about my team and you is that we came from academia.

I was sitting here thinking the same thing. It is so clear to me, and to the audience, that your background is clinical. You are coming from a doctoral-level clinical social worker standpoint with your methodology, research, and being precise and methodical in doing this. There are many wonderful interventionists, but not all have the academic background that you and I share. It’s a fresh, amazing approach to have a doctoral-level clinician working as your interventionist.

It is. Another thing we bring is personal. We don’t use much of our personal experience, my first book Falling Up: A Memoir of Renewal, clearly depicts that I was born on a fault line of trauma. It’s public knowledge. Five sudden deaths from mental health and substance abuse knitted right through my family.

It was like a quilt that you want to have. That gives us that but working with people who are also in recovery brings another dimension. As far as family is concerned, 97% of all interventions are with family. Let me clarify how we define family. You work with a lot of estate attorneys, business managers for celebrities, hairdressers, stylists, naval families, and people who identify as family. Ninety-seven percent of the work upfront for intervention is done with those people because the person experiencing the substance use disorder, mental health disorder, chronic pain, or process disorder will continue what they are doing until these people change how they behave.

“97% of the work upfront for an intervention is done with those people [family and friends] because the person with the substance use disorder, mental health disorder, chronic pain, or process disorder will keep what they’re doing until these people change how they behave.”

Family Mapping

Talk to us a little bit about something you are famous for, as well as family mapping.

Family intensives. I love working with families and collaborating with teams, such as your clinical team, to figure things out. I have done creative family programs. We did one a long time ago. The name is still in existence. They never changed our name but I helped create that. I also teach. I still teach across the country and will do teachings for other behavioral healthcare facilities. That’s what I’m most famous for working with families and being part of a team.

The most important thing is that we don’t do these things in isolation. Someone once said, “Why have you never taught an intervention course?” I have only taught people who have already been trained. There are many people who do great beginning courses. I only wanted to work in a concierge, bespoke fashion with people who already had training. That’s what I was interested in. You have never seen me offer a course. The only time I was going to offer a course, it got canceled because of COVID. The University of Wisconsin contracted with me, and we had a whole course planned. I was excited about that, but COVID took it away.

Latest Book

Tell us about your book.

My new book is so exciting. I remember writing it during COVID. Sometimes we get arrogant when we are in speaking engagements. I was speaking at the Providence Medical Center in Washington, and I was so excited because it was all doctors, and that’s a different crowd. I was talking about chronic pain, trauma, and substance abuse. I was coming back to the desert where I lived, getting ready to fly off to another speaking engagement. I was so excited because I was doing it at the same time I had been contracted or contacted by a publishing house to write a book. I said, “I can write a book.” I’m the only person who believes they can write a book without a ghostwriter. That would have been my third book.

I said, “No problem. I will sign the contract.” They said, “Do you understand you are going to write in March, and it needs to be done by July?” I said, “No problem. I can do that.” I like to write at 5:00 in the morning. I came back to the desert, signed the contract, and the world stopped on March 13th. COVID hit, and I was very grateful to have the opportunity to write Addiction in the Family: Helping Families Navigate Challenges, Emotions, and Recovery.

I wish they had let me call it Addiction and Mental Health because it covers both. I wrote it, and they gave me an editor who was good. This was the first book where I was taught, “You have to keep writing.” You can’t go back and redo chapters one and two, not from March to July. No. You have to write until you have all seven chapters, and then you go back. It was about the guidebook that I wish I had. It says, “What do you do? What do you say?” It talks about treatment, what to look for in a behavioral healthcare facility, what kinds of different treatments, and even what to look for in an intervention. What I like is at the end of every chapter and it’s six easy chapters you graciously give it away to everybody. It has exercises that can help families, from breathing to journaling to being grateful. I love the grateful one. Did you wake up and do your grateful list?

I did. Yes.

We know that if you can write down three things you are grateful for every day, even in the midst of having a kid running around, not leaving the bedroom, not doing this, lying, cheating, or stealing, it changes your actual brain chemistry. The researcher was Edmonds, who was a psychologist in the psychology of happiness.

Also walking, doing some type of physical exercise, journaling. The famous one, which I always give to families it’s in there. I always work by invitation only. I can’t tell you what to do. I always invite you to do nine things every week to take care of yourself physically, emotionally, spiritually, or in ways consistent with your values. You do that here at Flowers in terms of the way you structure your clients’ activities.

We believe in that bio-psychosocial approach. Unfortunately, we are running out of time. How do people reach you, Dr. Stanger?

I still answer my phone. All you do is pick up and go 619-507-1699 or you can check me out on my website which is All About Interventions. Like Dr. Flowers, when I finished writing the book during COVID, I thought, “Maybe I should make some YouTube videos to explain what an intervention is and how to do that.” I do have an All About Interventions YouTube video.

It’s amazing. It’s so educational. Do they go to YouTube and search for All About Interventions?

Yes. Also, you can catch me on Katie Couric’s podcast.

Where do you listen to Katie Couric’s podcast?

It’s called What’s Next? Katie interviewed Elizabeth Vargas, myself, and two other women. Katie was interested in learning about addiction in women. Elizabeth is in recovery. It has an amazing story. We learned that we were together on the island of Okinawa. Only she was 9 and I was 20 and her trauma was very different from mine.

Tune to Katie Couric’s podcast and listen to Dr. Stanger, Elizabeth Vargas, and a few other women talk to Katie about recovery and life. You can reach us at J Flowers Health or 713-783-6655 and we want to remind you that a clear diagnosis is the most effective treatment possible. Thank you, everybody, for reading. Louise, thank you so much. We love you to death. I’m glad you are in Houston.

I’m so glad I’m here. I love it.

We’ll do this again soon. Thanks, everybody.

Dr. Louise Stanger – Invitational Change Is Possible [Episode 66]