Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies Commons^™

Counselors’ Lived Experience Treating Patients Utilizing Methadone: The Intersection Of Culture, Policy, And Stigma, Kathryn Floyd Eggert

Antioch University Full-Text Dissertations & Theses

The United States continues to experience unprecedented deaths related to the opioid epidemic. Efforts to address the epidemic remain hampered by war-on-drugs policies that stigmatize people who use drugs and create barriers to accessing evidence-based treatments, particularly methadone maintenance treatments (MMT). Despite 50 years of research regarding MMT, it remains highly regulated, and arguably the most stigmatized treatment. The punitive regulatory structure of MMT remained unchanged until emergency waivers were initiated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The study used an exploratory, critical phenomenological approach to examine the intersection of culture and regulation on the lived experiences of 26 addiction counselors who …