Enriching Education - New course in addiction counseling tackles bias

Chatham University’s graduate programs in Psychology now offer an elective class in Addiction Counseling that includes an element of film study that allows students to refine technical skills.

Addictions Counseling is an elective available to students in all three of Chatham's graduate psychology programs. The learning objectives are based on the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration’s (SAMHSA’s) Addictions Counseling Competencies, which are unique in that they emphasize not just skills but also attitudes. Accordingly, a major aim of the course is to help students scrutinize their conceptions of addictions, as well as their biases toward people with addictions, recognizing that technical skills alone do not ensure quality care.

To help students challenge these biases, John Dimoff, Ph.D., assistant professor of Graduate Psychology who teaches the class, turns to a surprising source: social psychology.

“Although there have been efforts to integrate counseling with social psychology over the years, these efforts have typically been short-lived. However, some of the most brilliant articles on the topic of addiction have been written by social psychologists with one of the most personally impactful articles that I have read making the argument that addictive behaviors are a form of self-regulation. While we may think of ‘self-regulation’ as another term for ‘self-control,’ social psychologists define it as anything we do in an effort to achieve important goals,” Dimoff says.

According to Dimoff, thinking about addictive behaviors in this way has been incredibly helpful, and it is very much in keeping with Chatham’s graduate programs’ emphasis on strength-based counseling approaches.

“After all, it gives clients credit by acknowledging that they usually know the risks associated with addictive behaviors, and that they are willing to take those risks if the behaviors bring them momentary relief,” he adds. “By thinking of addiction in this way, we can then help clients explore other healthier ways of achieving their goals, such as going for a walk when they’re feeling stressed out, rather than taking a smoke break, rather than assuming that the addictive behavior was simply the byproduct of low self-control, willpower, and more.”

In addition, according to Dimoff, another of its unique features is a round of “film study” that students undertake to refine their technical skills.

“Along with peer-reviewed articles and classic addictions counseling training videos, students review a brilliant 7-part series on Brief Therapy for Addictions, which we then study like an NFL team might study game footage,” Dr. Dimoff says.

In addition, Dr. Dimoff believes students sharpen their general counseling skills through the film study portions of class because the videos involve standard counseling interventions that work for more than just addiction.

“In fact, one of the first ‘big reveal’ moments in the class is revealing that addictions counseling skills are not a mysterious set of skills that are totally separate from standard counseling skills, and that the most supported treatments for addictions are standard techniques like cognitive-behavioral therapy. Therefore, even though we focus on how we would use those skills in an addictions’ context, we also focus on the general ideas underlying those treatments.”