A substance abuse counselors main goal is to create a strong relationship with their patients ultimately guiding them through recovery and empowering patients to recognize and change their problematic behaviors. A substance abuse counselor will have a college educated background where they learned to be able to achieve that goal effectively.
If someone was thinking about becoming a substance abuse counselor then they should take a moment to reflect on whether or not they truly have the desire to help others no matter how challenging helping patients can be. Next they should take into consideration some of the soft skills that are necessary for helping patients in recovery. Soft skills are skills that someone already has within themselves but are refined and strengthened during the college education process. Being able to listen clearly and to be able to communicate with clear meaning are necessary skills for a counselor to make a meaningful relationship with a patient. During an interview with Isaac Dieterman of the ten sixteen network, Dieterman comments that “Communication is huge, counseling is a relationship where there is open communication… With any kind of relationship you need good communication or its just not going to work out. So communication is extremely important in this line of work.” What he means is that a counselor-patient relationship depends on good communication skills to form a trusting open bond between counselor and patient. When a patient feels like their counselor is listening to what they are saying and feeling they are more adapt to opening up to their counselor about their past experiences. Also with good listening skills a counselor will be able to hear problematic behaviors that would cause a patient to relapse. Being able to help a patient understand their problematic behaviors and teach them tools for recovery come with having good communication and listening skills.
Unconditional positive regard means that the counselor accepts the patient for who they are and is not withdrawn if the patient makes bad choices. As Dieterman says “unconditional positive regard is all about seeing the individual not by their problem but as another human being that needs help.” What Dieterman means is that a counselor should be able to not judge the patient on what they have been through or why they are seeking help but instead be able to see another individual trying to get help. Saul McLeod writes about Carl Rogers discovery stating that “Unconditional positive regard is where parents, significant others (and the humanist therapist) accepts and loves the person for what he or she is. Positive regard is not withdrawn if the person does something wrong or makes a mistake.” Mcleod is saying basically the same thing as Dieterman in that unconditional positive regard means to accept another individual without regards to their past and mistakes.
Ethics are also necessary skills when working with addicts in recovery because it is important for a patient to feel as though they are genuinely cared about while keeping confidentiality. A substance abuse counselor should be able to help the patient without their patients feeling as though they are being judged when they reveal the deepest of their life experiences. As Faizah Imani states in his article Code of Ethics for Substance Abuse Counselors, “The substance abuse counselor is obligated to maintain the confidentiality of all client sessions. This includes the identities of her clients … information discussed during counseling sessions…. All recordings of client sessions, as well as paperwork containing client data, must be stored in a secure location.” (Para 2) This means that a substance abuse counselor should always make every interaction confidential from all of the data you collect to conversation in sessions. It is really important to uphold this confidentiality mainly because it is the law but also because a counselor-patient relationship is built on a layer of trust. The only legal way to break confidentiality according to Imani “… to disclose confidential information to federal authorities … involving child abuse or a medical emergency. Otherwise, the client must sign a release form” (para 2) What he means is that if the patient reveals that he or she is a danger to themself or endangering someone else then it is up to the counselor to uphold their ethics and going to the authorities with the information. For example if the patient reveals that she pushed her ten year old down the stairs which resulted in a broken bone then it is up to the counselor to call Child Protective Services and/or the Police for the safety of the ten year old. Another way to look at a substance abuse counselor’s ethics as Imani put it “ … prohibited from discriminating against clients based on race, gender, sexual orientation, handicap, religion, political views or any other reason.” (Para 3) Therefore in order to be an ethical substance abuse counselor then they should not discriminate against any patient for any reason once again it’s against the law but also its not good for a substance abuse counselors career and reputation.
Learning to be a great addiction counselor takes a lot of hard work and determination during and after college. Throughout college someone who is learning to be an addiction counselor will have to learn a vast set hard skills like literacy, research, computer literacy. For example a substance abuse counselor have to undergo some research of their patients major history by having sessions and making detailed accounts of the patients experiences. Then substance abuse counselor will need to know how to fill out relapse prevention plans with patients so they know what to do when they have cravings or are put in tough situations. Substance abuse counselors also should be able to help patients with plans or goals for they patients future without drugs. In order to be able to do so they have to be able to not only communicate but also be able to read and write the answers on paper as well as computers.
Critical thinking is one of the most difficult and important hard skills learned throughout college because the student has to learn a whole new way to think and look at problems. For example Robert L. Williams, Renee Oliver and Susan Stockdale who wrote Journal of General Education published by Penn State University Press state that ‘..critical thinking to be more strongly linked to performance in a course than a generic measure…. If a performance task requires a high level of critical thinking, then critical thinking measures should strongly predict performance of that task.’ (38) This is just relaying that their theory is that the better the students learn and know how to think critically the better performance they will have in that class course. Which if they are doing better in classes because of critical thinking then the results would be that they will do better after college. Psychology specifically is a field of work that needs its employees to know how to use critical thinking in order to function.
Therefore learning to be in the field of psychology is going to take a lot of hard work and determination. Someone who is looking to go into psychology is going to have to learn to critical think while being unjudgemental.
Works Cited
Imani, Faizah. “Code of Ethics for Substance Abuse Counselors.” Work – Chron.com, http://work.chron.com/code-ethics-substance-abuse-counselors-6989.html. Accessed 08 October 2019.
Isaac Dieterman, an outpatient therapist at ten sixteen recovery network. P: (231) 429-0131 | E: diete1i@cmich.edu Weinstein, Mark. “What Rethinking Reason Requires.” The American Journal of Psychology, vol. 110, no. 2, 1997, pp. 285–294. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1423719.
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