Addiction Studies and Counseling (ARC)

This course provides a comprehensive overview of the public health problems related to substance misuse, abuse, and dependence. Study areas include trends in substance abuse, process addictions, relevant national drug policies, the role of the media, domestic violence, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder, HIV/AIDS plus other contagions, and costs to society. In this course, students will be introduced to the harm reduction, prevention, and treatment continuum and its application to the public health model.

Students will learn, practice, and develop counseling skills such as: attending, reflecting, active listening, and mirroring; and the theories that are fundamental to addiction counseling and understand the relationship between theory and skills. In this course, students will reflect on their roles as counselors and define the qualities, knowledge base, and skills essential to becoming a competent, ethical, and culturally responsive counselor-in-training.

This course will introduce the student to the concepts and theories of group counseling and will present an overview of the different modalities of group counseling, from psychoeducational groups to process groups. This course will also explore the use of group counseling as an effective modality for treating addictions and the implications for use in a multicultural environment. Students will have an opportunity to examine their own performance as a group leader and a group member through experiential groups.

This course focuses on families with addictions by investigating the family as a system, the family life cycle, family roles, family rules, and the multicultural perspectives of the family. Family counseling theories, genograms, and goals, strategies, and techniques are introduced to students.

This course is a comprehensive overview of the prevention area of substance abuse. The course explores prevention theory and research, models of prevention, ethics, performance domains for prevention certification, application of theory, cultural competencies, and research to program planning.

This course will provide an examination of addiction treatment across the spectrum of correctional settings. Students will understand the link between criminal behavior and addiction as well as the avenues for entering recovery via the correctional system. A focused study will investigate the evidenced-based treatment approaches that addictions counselors in correctional settings must be capable of implementing.

Students will explore how and why drugs of abuse impact the human body as well as society with an introduction to basic neurotransmission and understand how each class of psychoactive substance alters neurotransmission and homeostasis and examination of the consequences of short and long-term substance use, abuse, and addiction on all major systems of the body and the fetus.

This course provides an overview of the major counseling theories and figures including: Reality, Person-Centered, Gestalt, and Rational-Emotive, and addresses the techniques and professional practices associated with the theories. Emphasis is placed on current evidence-based treatment models such as Motivational Interviewing, Solution-Focused, and Cognitive Behavioral. Students in this course will apply appropriate basic counseling skills developed in ASC 1011 to a variety of treatment settings, cultures, and client populations based on previous exploration of evidence-based theories, models, and techniques.

Students will be introduced to major concepts essential to the understanding of culture, race, and diversity withing the context of addiction counseling, develop an awareness of their own cultural communication styles, their values and their beliefs regarding the use of substance, develop an awareness and understanding of communication styles of others, and practice conducting culturally competent assessments, recovery plans and counseling skills for the treatment of substance abuse disorders. Combines didactic and experiential learning opportunities.

This course will introduce students to major concepts in the treatment of co-occurring substance use disorders and mental health disorders. Students will develop awareness of the unique challenges that face clients who are struggling with multiple diagnoses. Students will practice conducting assessments, recovery plans, counseling skills and continuum of care issues relevant to the recovery process for this special population. Combines didactic and experiential learning opportunities.

Students will observe, practice, and develop increased competency in the 8 Practices Dimensions of addiction counseling through supervised field placement (onsite and DAR faculty). Students will progress from active observers to co-counselors, and then counselors through reflection, self-evaluation, seminar participation, field placement (15 hours per week), and clinical supervision.

Students will observe, practice, and develop increased competency in the 12 core functions of addiction counseling through supervised field placement (onsite and ASC faculty). Students will progress from active observers to co-counselors, and then counselors through reflection, self-evaluation, seminar participation, field placement (15 hours per week), and clinical supervision.