MRT - Moral Reconation Therapy
Counseling for Court Ordered Clients
Individual and Group
(Flat Fee Payable at Intake)

MRT: Brief Overview

MRT “is an objective, systematic treatment” specifically designed for court ordered clients and chemically dependent offenders.  A cognitive behavioral therapy, MRT intends to cause change in the way criminal justice clients think and act. The goal of MRT is to facilitate clients’ learning to make conscious decisions based on pro social alternatives.  A non conscious decision is a reaction. Reactions are programmed responses to survival issues. CJ clients seem to react as if survival depended on getting what they want when they want by whatever means available. MRT guidelines allow clients to take full responsibility for their actions and consequences.  Those same guidelines explain to clients, step by step, a means of raising themselves toward a life style in which care for the welfare of self and others is a primary value. The MRT format lends itself to group or individual counseling.  Clients do not go back and forth between the two, nor do they have to for wait for treatment until a group has formed. Participants use MRT workbooks and have homework assignments they must complete prior to session.

MRT opens neural pathways to foster new learning.  Clients are required to draw their home work vs. presenting a written assignment.  Drawing may block a glib delivery and foster spontaneity.  Clients visualize when they draw. “It makes things real”, tangible. Goals appear attainable. The authors have generated several special focus workbooks.  “Staying Quit” is one.  Its focus is Relapse Prevention.  “Staying Quit” informs participants at the outset their counselor knows most clients secretly plan to relapse.  Quietly, this strategy plants a barb in their denial, and interferes with the adrenaline rush CJ clients derive from “secret” plans. The goals of the first module in “Staying Quit” are “to motivate and assist clients in learning to prioritize”.  Needs e.g. housing are framed as ‘good things which come from quitting’ vs. ‘wreckage left in the wake of using’. While drawing, the client “sees” his need and may begin to think of ways to find housing. Lastly, research has demonstrated a correlation between responses to certain questions and predictable behaviors. The implications for treatment are obvious.  If you have questions, I would welcome hearing from you.