72 Journal of Addictions & Offender Counseling • October 2011 • Volume 32 © 2011 by the American Counseling Association. All rights reserved. Reframing Recovery: Developmental Considerations for Maintaining Change Gerard Lawson, Simone F. Lambert, and Charles F. Gressard Lasting recovery for clients can be challenging to establish in addictions counsel- ing. Through the combination of 2 approaches, motivational interviewing and developmental counseling and therapy, client treatment can be refined to promote transformative change and long-lasting recovery. When clients with addiction issues come to counseling, the counselor can help them explore and ultimately change their behaviors. Facilitating behavioral change is crucial and often the easiest measures of success in counseling. However, maintaining that change, avoiding relapse, and enter- ing recovery are the more significant outcomes for the client. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (2005), “Recovery from alcohol and drug problems is a process of change through which an individual achieves abstinence and improved health, wellness and quality of life” (p. 1). Within recovery, the duration of abstinence is positively correlated with enhanced coping skills, stable housing, social and spiritual support, and self-efficacy associated with preventing relapse (Dennis, Foss, & Scott, 2007). Addictions treatment can be a frustrating process. Clients often make advances, then relapse and lose the progress previously accomplished. Dennis, Scott, and Funk (2003) suggested that clients who struggle with chronic addiction issues may cycle through substance use, treatment, recovery, and relapse for nearly a decade. Often this results in multiple treatment admissions. Thus, changing behavior is often just the beginning, not a sufficient endpoint. As a result, counselors must be aware of both the behavioral change itself and the accompanying growth in other areas of clients’ lives that may assist them to maintain that change and enter lasting recovery. By combining the strengths of two proven approaches, motivational interviewing (MI) and developmental counseling and therapy (DCT), we address the following issues in addictions treatment: how to help clients change and how to help them maintain that change. The literature demonstrates counseling efficacy; meta-analyses have dem- onstrated that individuals benefit from the counseling process when they are trying to overcome life’s challenges (Wampold, 2000). In addition, coun- selors have learned more about how individuals change and have identified counseling factors that best meet specific needs of clients (Lambert & Barley, Gerard Lawson and Simone F. Lambert, School of Education, Virginia Tech; Charles F. Gressard, Counselor Education Program, College of William and Mary. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Simone F. Lambert, School of Education, Virginia Tech, 7054 Haycock Road, Falls Church, VA 22043 (e-mail: slambert@vt.edu).