For Kerryn Ashford-Hatherly and Michael Tunnecliffe, principal psychologists at West Perth-based Ashcliffe Psychology, treating addiction is about restoring order to chaotic lives.
For Kerryn Ashford-Hatherly and Michael Tunnecliffe, principal psychologists at West Perth-based Ashcliffe Psychology, treating addiction is about restoring order to chaotic lives.
Working together since 2017, Ms Ashford-Hatherly and Mr Tunnecliffe practise an evidence-based treatment program called the Matrix Model.
Ms Ashford-Hatherly told Business News she came across the model in 2016 while studying for a master’s degree in clinical psychology and working as a clinical manager of BSS Employee Assistance.
“I worked for a resources organisation during the mining boom, and if anyone on site breached an alcohol or other drugs test, they’d be sent to us to assess their fitness for work,” she said.
During this time, she said, some of the most common breaches to come across her desk were for methamphetamine usage.
“I had worked in the 1990s and back then … I’d seen a shift to amphetamine usage when meth hit the streets,” Ms Ashford-Hatherly said.
“I was aware from back then that this was a drug that normal treatment was just not effective against.”
Then and now, Ms Ashford-Hatherly saw a pattern where workers attended rehab and counselling after failing their tests, only to relapse shortly after.
As part of her master’s degree, she started researching treatment for methamphetamine addiction, believing the drug had a different impact on the brain than other drugs.
“People would tell me they didn’t want to do the drug,” she said.
“They might relapse, but they seemed as if they had just lost control of their brain.”
It was around that time that Ms Ashford-Hatherly came across the Matrix Model.
Pioneered in the 1980s, the outpatient treatment model integrates group meetings and cognitive behavioural therapy to treat addiction to stimulants, with an intensive initial period of 20 weeks followed by a 28-week maintenance phase.
“There was 30 years of research behind this model, and all I thought was, ‘Why didn’t we have this here in Australia?’” she said.
Travelling to the US to receive training from the Matrix Institute in 2016, Ms Ashford-Hatherly felt inspired, and encouraged BSS’s then-director Mr Tunnecliffe to reconsider his upcoming retirement and attend the institute himself.
“I had been the head of psychology for the WA Police for five years and I had worked with St John Ambulance; I’d always worked in crisis and emergency services,” Mr Tunnecliffe told Business News.
“When I worked at [BSS], we came across various addictions but we always used to farm it out to the different agencies.
“People with addiction are just the most incredible client group; getting people to turn their lives around really made me feel inspired.”
Establishing Ashcliffe Psychology in 2017, Ms Ashford-Hatherly and Mr Tunnecliffe have treated a variety of mental health issues as well as administering the Matrix Model to help treat addiction.
Citing a 55 per cent recovery rate for patients during the initial period of the model, they said the program had proved popular with mining, oil and gas companies, with their practice now contracted by several organisations in the resources industry to help treat workers with amphetamine addiction.
Drug use has emerged as a significant issue in the resources sector in recent years, particularly among WA’s fly-in, fly-out workers.
A 2018 report found them to have used illicit drugs in the previous year at a rate 10 per cent higher than the norm.
Those numbers were more alarming when it came to amphetamine use, with Fifo workers found to use the drug at a rate five times higher than the rest of society.
Though treatment can be demanding, Ms Ashford-Hatherly said the discretion of an intensive, private treatment could help those who might otherwise not visit government-funded programs or inpatient rehab clinics.
“Our patients are professional, working people who don’t see themselves with an addiction problem and don’t want to be seen going to [rehab],” she said.
As an example, Ms Ashford-Hatherly mentioned treating a woman who held senior roles in the financial industry and had injected amphetamines daily for more than two decades.
Mr Tunnecliffe similarly recalled a patient who had been self-medicating with the drug for 20 years and had successfully hidden it from his partner (she only found out through a required family therapy session).
“There’s a stereotype with meth that [if you’re an addict], you’ve got sores all over your face, you’ve got rotting teeth and you’re violent,” Ms Ashford-Hatherly said.
Mr Tunnecliffe said there was a misconception that addiction resulted from a flawed personality or a lack of self-control.
“The vast majority of people in our groups are self-medicating,” he said.
“Around half of our group is diagnosed with ADHD and they’re just trying to keep their life together.”
