The Role of the Drug Treatment, Essay Example

The role of the drug treatment counselor can be defined as attempting to facilitate the therapeutic treatment of the addict. The recommendation of a proper treatment program can be crucial to the process. In this regard, the counselor must consider each case as unique, in order to provide the best possible treatment program for the individual. We may identify three factors pertinent to this process. Firstly, the counselor must take into account the addiction from a psychological perspective, which attempts to identify the subjective reasons for addiction. Factors such as “personal pathology” (Siegel, 2007, p. 420) indicate that the reason for addiction may be a form of “self-medication” (Siegel, 2007, p. 420), which helps the addict cope with their everyday life. In these cases, a program that emphasizes a psychological approach will be appropriate to the addict, helping them to understand the personal reasons for their behavior. Secondly, some drug addiction can be traced to “subcultural” factors, (Siegel, 2007, p. 420) in which the living environment of the addict directly influences the addictive behavior. In this case, residential treatment programs can be considered, as these programs remove the addict from a surrounding environment that promotes drug use. A third crucial factor can be to consider the physical state of the addict. Long time users will evince a level of addiction that perhaps requires special treatment. Thus, selecting a detoxification program that is proper to the physical needs of the addict should be stressed in order to ensure their long-term health.

When considering such factors in the selection of a treatment program, I believe it is always pertinent to emphasize a subjective approach. To the extent that the reasons for drug addiction are multiple, each case should essentially be analyzed on its own terms. The logic of drug use can be complex, and counseling and treatment approaches should be as dynamic as possible. In this sense what is required is to understand the “impact that different etiological factors have in affecting drug use trajectories”, (Pandina and Johnson, 2005, p. 124) which is to say that cause and effect relationships must be considered from a subjective viewpoint, as addiction cannot be reduced to some over-arching “objective” perspective. The continued identification of the various causes of drug abuse and the development of more varied forms of both counseling and treatment would contribute to addressing this complex etiology in a therapeutic and humane manner.

References

Pandina, Robert J. and Johnson, L. Valerie. (2005). “Lifespan Development and Drugs.” Addiction Counseling Review: Preparing for Comprehensive, Certification and Licensing Examinations. Mahwah, NJ: Lahaska, 105-127.

Siegel, Larry. J. (2008). Criminology (10^th ed.). Belmont, CA: Cengage Learning.