the historical essence of addiction counseling

1. The Historical Essence of Addiction Counseling William L. White Chestnut Health Systems

2. Presentation Goals What distinguishes the profession of addiction counseling from other helping professions? Kinetic ideas regarding AOD problems Use of Self Relationships with Clients Professional Peer Relationships Relationships to Community

3. Theoretical Foundation Five kinetic ideas 1. Severe and Persistent AOD problems constitute a PRIMARY disorder 2. The multiple problems experienced by those with this disorder are best resolved through a framework of recovery initiation and maintenance

4. Kinetic Ideas 3. Addiction counseling for individuals with high problem severity/complexity and low recovery capital increases the prognosis for long-term recovery. 4. That treatment is best provided by individuals with knowledge & expertise in facilitating the physical, psychological, cultural and spiritual journey from addiction to recovery.

5. Kinetic Ideas 5. Is the addicted person viewed as Dr. Jekyll or Mr. Hyde? --Mr. Hyde: Real person revealed by intoxication and disinhibition; addiction is the revelation of badness --Dr. Jekyll: Real person is the sober self; addiction is about goodness corrupted by sickness

6. Use of Self Wounded Healer Tradition �They were not alcoholic, but they did have something in common: each in his or her own way...had been emptied out�.Each had encountered and survived tragedy.� --Kurtz, 1996 Openness to �calling�

7. Use of Self Use of our Whole Person --greater appreciation of mutual vulnerability --greater use of self-disclosure, e.g., Baylor�s reciprocal confidentiality --combined with expectation for detachment & objectivity

8. Use of Self Hope --a dimension of all helping professions --Addiction counseling unique in use of self as �living proof� of such hope and/or ability to link clients to communities of recovering people.

9. Use of Self Capacity to absorb loss --Use of losses to heighten understanding of addiction --Use of losses as opportunities for re-commitment --Awareness of the high stakes involved in our work brings unique rewards and burdens

10. Relationship with Clients A history of contempt from other professions Empathic identification & alliance --Being with rather than doing to or for Moral equality & emotional authenticity

11. Relationships with Clients Respect for Transformative Change Respect for the power of catalytic metaphors Teaching recovery self-management --�students� versus �patients�

12. Professional Peer Relationships Inter-professional Collaboration --Francis Chambers (1935) & Dr. Edward Strecker --Principles of collaboration --Boundaries of competence --Mutual respect Intra-professional Collaboration --Baylor�s model of mentoring

13. Relationship to Community Matt Rose --OEO & National Association of Alcoholism Counselors and Trainers (1972) Recovery and Community Lost & Rediscovered Activism

14. Future of Addiction Counseling Threats to Addiction Treatment Field & to Role of Addiction Counselor --restigmatization, demedicalization, & recriminalization --Colonization and loss of core values & core clinical technology --New role of recovery coach

15. Future of Addiction Counseling Aging of Field Age as vulnerability (problems of leadership development/succession Age is opportunity (power of a volunteer force) In search of a new generation of addiction counselors

16. The Future of Addiction Counseling Opportunities --Renewal movement --New breakthroughs in knowledge & technology Sacredness of our role Essence worth cherishing & protecting

17. Closing �What we are responsible for is creating a milieu of opportunity, choice and hope. What happens with that opportunity is up to those we serve. We can own neither the addiction nor the recovery, only the clarity of the presented choice, the best clinical technology we can muster, and our faith in the potential for human rebirth.� �White, 1998