Getting (and giving) better answers to legal questions on Facebook

Matthew Henry / Burst / Licensed under Creative Commons ZeroFacebook is a great resource for gathering information. Often, and for the right reasons, we turn to social media in hopes of gathering information we need in a short period of time and with little effort. But for therapists going to social media with legal questions, that convenience may not be worth it. Many of the answers therapists give peers for legal questions on Facebook are incorrect.

We reviewed 20 recent posts that included legal questions in therapist groups on Facebook. We looked strictly at legal questions where there was a clear correct answer that we could easily reference. So anything requiring interpretation of law was purposefully left out. Our review was by no means comprehensive — it falls more closely in bar-napkin-math territory. But we still think this quick review offers some valuable information.

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AA should not be the frontline referral for every client with alcohol issues

12-stepA couple of weeks ago, we took a quote about alcohol treatment (AA, specifically) from Saving Psychotherapy and put it in an Instagram and Facebook post. It didn’t go well!

You can see our post there to the right. That was the image we shared. Here’s a sampling of how people responded:

  • I find this to be a dangerous overgeneralization.
  • Be careful with this. Lives are at stake.
  • This is just wrong!!
  • Dangerous, irresponsible statement!

Not only do we stand by the quote, the finding itself isn’t especially controversial in the world of research on treatment for substance use disorders. It’s mostly controversial among professionals who don’t want it to be true.

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