Program Outcomes:

Program Outcome #1: Use therapeutic communications in professional relationships.
Program Outcome #2: Apply counseling theories and techniques in the human service field.
Program Outcome #3: Develop personal and client behavioral health and wellness strategies.
Program Outcome #4: Use effective case management skills and documentation.
Program Outcome #5: Develop strategies for treating and intervening on behalf of victims of violence.
Program Outcome #6: Integrate cultural competency standards into delivering the human service field.
Program Outcome #7: Apply proper ethical and legal guidelines for the confidentiality of client information.

Learning Outcomes:

Learning Objective #1: Demonstrate Knowledge of theories, research, best practice literature & effective approaches with substance use disorders.
Learning Objective #2: Demonstrate Knowledge of the role of the counselor & therapeutic uses of power & authority.
Learning Objective #3: Provide definitions of warmth, respect, genuineness, concreteness & empathy.
Learning Objective #4: Demonstrate techniques for dealing with transference, counter-transference & projective identification.
Learning Objective #5: Learn to carry out the actions necessary to form & facilitate a group.

Core Abilities

Communication
Personal/Professional-Responsibility
Critical Thinking/ Problem-Solving
Information/Technological Literacy

Dealing With Early Denial

The first few hours of treatment are a time not for harsh confrontation but for listening, supporting, and encouraging clients to share what they can. The great healer in any treatment or therapeutic model is love (treating others like you would want them to treat you), and love necessitates action in truth. Unfortunately, all clients come into counseling and treatment in denial. They have been dishonest with themselves and others. They are lying, and they will lie to you. Your job is to search for ambivalence and inconsistencies in their story that reveal the lies. Then, as gently as possible, reflect the truth. Although you do not want to hurt the clients or incur their wrath, there must be a dedication to the facts and contextually relevant honesty. If trauma in addiction is complex, so must the healing process's complexity. There has to be objective honesty.

Clients lie to themselves in many ways. They do not want to see the whole truth because the truth makes them feel guilty and anxious. They keep the uncomfortable feelings under control by deceiving themselves. They distort reality just enough to feel reasonably comfortable. They defend themselves against the truth with unconscious lies called defense mechanisms. "As long as we could stop using for a while, we thought we were all right. We looked at the stopping, not the using" (Narcotics Anonymous [NA], 1988, p. 3). Clients minimize reality by thinking that their problems are not so bad. Then they rationalize by thinking that they have a good reason to use drugs. Then they deny - stubbornly refusing to see their problems at all. Treatment is an endless search for truth.

Your job as an addiction counselor is to help the clients learn the truth, knowing that the truth will set them free from slavery - the lies.

Perkinson, Robert R. Chemical Dependency Counseling (p. 21). SAGE Publications. Kindle Edition.

Mental Health Mini # 9: Defense Mechanisms
Mental Health Mini # 9: Defense Mechanisms - YouTube

ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS

Learning Outcome #2: Demonstrate Knowledge of the role of the counselor & therapeutic uses of power & authority.

Mental Health Mini # 10: Ethics in Psychiatric Nursing

Mental Health Mini # 10: Ethics in Psychiatric Nursing - YouTube