Jessica keeps pressing you as the leader to give her advice on how she should avoid relapse. She seems very impatient with feedback from other group members, because she wants your “expert” help. She tells you that in her culture, she has been taught to respect authority and to seek out experts such as yourself for the answers to her problems. In spite of the fact that you have done your best to help members find their own answers, Jessica continues to rely on you for her solutions and discount the experiences and advice of her peers in the group.

Knowing that Jessica has a cultural background that has rein­forced her pattern of seeking solutions from experts, how might you proceed with her? Would you interpret her behavior as dependency? Do you see her behavior as a response to her cultural conditioning, manipulating, or as a defense? How would you connect her behavior to relapse behavior (if the advice does not work the blame the expert)?

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