Counselor Magazine - February 2007 Issue

Newsflash

The Association for Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse will hold its 32nd Annual AMERSA National Conference on November 6-8, 2008, in Washington DC.

The meeting will reflect on AMERSA's interdisciplinary strengths and the commitment to disseminate the latest developments in substance abuse education, prevention, treatment and research that challenge all health care professionals.

Confirmed plenary sessions include:

Carlo DiClemente, PhD and Thaddeus Herzog, PhD in a Spicy Debate - Contemplating Change: The Pros and Cons of the Transtheoretical Model for Understanding Changes in Substance Use

John Rodolico, PhD, Terence Keane, PhD and Susan Storti, PhD, RN in a Plenary Panel Session on Combat Stress and Substance Abuse in the Wake of War

Randolph D. Muck, MEd, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, speaking on Adolescent/Emerging Adults

John Cunningham, PhD, Senior Scientist Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, speaking on the Internet and New Media as Tools to Recovery

Jerome Jaffe, MD, University of Maryland School of Medicine, will be the recipient of the distinguished John P. McGovern Award

Stephanie O'Malley, PhD, Director, Division of Substance Abuse Research, CMHC, will receive the prestigious Betty Ford Award honoring her valuable contributions to the substance abuse field.

Call for Abstracts now open. Submit abstracts and workshops online by May 15.

For further information, visit www.amersa.org or contact This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

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February 2007 Vol. 8, No.1

Neurobiology: Unlocking the Mind to Promote Well-Being

Editor’s Note: Ideas in this article were adapted from the author’s work as exemplified in the Psychiatric Annals (2006).

In treating clients with addictive disorders, it is often helpful for the counselor to determine what may ...
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Presence: A Radical Old Approach to Helping
Science, psychology and spirituality are converging. In recent decades, people are bringing together the richness and simple wholeness of spiritual teachings from many traditions, east and west the direction of technology and how it is shaping soc...
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Low-Cost Incentives to Improve Counseling Attendance
Would you like to see more clients attending your groups and more enthusiasm among those who do attend? There are new methods available to help attract and sustain group therapy participation in addiction treatment programs. These methods, known a...
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The Rubik's Cube of Addiction Counseling Part 5: Counseling Addiction Intervention
When most people think of addiction counseling, intervention is what jumps out as the most visible aspect. Perhaps it is because intervention is where “the rubber hits the road” and visible progress starts to be made in a client’...
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The Changing Profile of the Drinking/Drugged Driver: Implications for Clinical Assessment
Problems arising from acute and chronic alcohol and other drug intoxication constitute significant public health and safety issues in America. Of particular concern is the role alcohol and other drug impairment continues to play in traffic fatalit...
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Columns

From the Editor February 2007
Dear Readers,

For many of us, the New Year offers a fresh start — a time when many people vow to make changes for the better. In keeping with the tradition of New Year’s resolutions, we at Counselor Magazine will continue to keep yo...
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Recovery from Overeating

As I drove home from work, I was overcome by a feeling of disgust. My stomach ached after consuming enormous amounts of cakes and cookies. I was stuck in traffic and as I became more agitated, I reached under the seat of my car and took out the ...
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Issues in Counseling Gifted and Talented Clients in Addiction Therapy

There is a misconception among most of society that gifted and talented persons don’t need any special attention from counselors. The assumption can be that gifted and talented persons (GNTs) just have more of “a good thing” an...
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Feel the Power of Collaboration

Who would read an encyclopedia whose contributors are unknown and whose information may be erroneous? Millions; at least that’s been the experience of the online encyclopedia, Wikipedia. Wikipedia is phenomenally successful, but it didn&rs...
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The Model for Improving Treatment Outcomes Already Exists
Traditionally counselors and treatment centers have used modalities and delivered services based on the fundamental beliefs that factors affecting outcomes were thought to be:

• characteristic of the individuals seeking treatment
• th...
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Recommendations from the Nation's Leading Addiction Researchers: Part 1

An important new book was recently published, Rethinking Substance Abuse: What the Science Shows, and What We Should Do About It (Miller & Carroll, 2006). It brought together some of the best addiction minds in the country to discuss the lat...
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Diagnosis Dilemma
Some months ago within this column, we briefly tried to distinguish between medical and non-medical treatment of patients with addiction. What are the differences, we asked, between treatment provided by physicians and treatment provided by non-ph...
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Pursuing a Blended Path to Spirituality in Recovery
As an addictions professional, you are intimately familiar with the difficulty that many people have in turning their lives over to a higher power, as part and parcel of their commitment to recovery. Oftentimes, this resistance stems back to relig...
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