Topic: counseling skills

Repeat DUI/DWI offenders can pose tough challenges for treatment programs and counselors. The needs of the client and the demands of the legal system don’t always work together.

If Bob gets a job, his mom will ask him to move out of the basement, and he’ll have to get a roommate, which he doesn’t want, so better to remain unemployed.

It’s not just what you present to your client — it’s how you present it. By following a few simple rules, you get better results. It’s not a perfect system, by any means. But it should improve outcomes.

It’s as if the addict is so accustomed to just acting on impulse that he/she has lost touch with the source of the impulse — ordinarily a negative emotional state such as anxiety, anger, sadness, etc.

Clients will test boundaries just to see what will happen when they do. If you’re prepared for such tests, and can avoid some predictable errors in response, you’ll find that the course of treatment runs smoother.

Seeking evidence, and applying practices based on evidence to your clinical interventions, can help making decisions that increase the chances of a desired outcome

Call it a bribe, call it an incentive, call it a clever idea… Giving a reluctant client a reason to comply can help treatment along.

Understanding how leverage works in the context of addiction treatment can give you the tools to identify your client’s agenda, and help them over the “rough spots” that inevitably occur when you work with offenders.

Countertransference issues can be a genuine hazard in our field. If allowed to continue, it can lead to some pretty spectacular incidents.

Counselors and therapists are — and I’m generalizing shamelessly here, so forgive me — warm, empathetic, even sympathetic by nature.