Three major issues in the supervision of substance abuse counselors are discussed in this paper, along with the role and challenges to such a supervisor. Included is a scenario where a counselor comes to the supervisor for help, and how the counselor should proceed.This paper has nine pages and six sources are listed in the bibliography.
Name of Research Paper File: MM12_PGclsp.rtf
Unformatted Sample Text from the Research Paper:
was new, supervision of those counseling substance abusers was little more than a senior-level helper telling someone else what to do (Juhnke and Culbreth, 2002). More often than not, the
directions given by the "supervisor" were based not on theories but on the senior counselors own personal experience during his or her own recovery process (Juhnke and Culbreth, 2002). While
the senior counselor may have had more experience working with substance abusers, that experience did not necessarily make the individual a good supervisor, a fact that was shown repeatedly (Juhnke
and Culbreth, 2002). Supervisors need to be knowledgeable and skilled in both the best practices of addictions counseling and also in advanced supervision techniques (Juhnke and Culbreth, 2002). Over the
last two decades or so, a plethora of addictions treatment programs have been developed but the area of supervision in this field has been neglected (Juhnke and Culbreth, 2002). Juhnke
and Culbreth point out that the "evidence of this is demonstrated through the limited number of journal articles written on the topic of addictions supervision. For example, a recent search
for articles written on the topic resulted in only ten citations; of these, only four specifically addressed the topic of providing clinical addictions supervision" (Juhnke and Culbreth, 2002). Clinical
supervision in the addictions arena is very different than clinical supervision in other areas. Powell pointed out that there are three supervision issues in substance abuse counseling that are idiosyncratic
to this particular type of counseling (1993): 1. A large percentage of "counselors" in addiction treatment are paraprofessionals (Powell, 1993). Paraprofessionals have obviously not fulfilled the rigid educational requirements for
a graduate degree in counseling or in any other allied human service field (Powell, 1993). In fact, in some states, paraprofessionals do not need anything more than a high school