Substance abuse is everywhere. We don’t mean that in the sense that everyone everywhere is just getting saucy all the time. But in the mental health field, it is something we can see in so many places. At certain times of year, during higher periods of life stress, or occurring along with so many other conditions (e.g., PTSD, depression, borderline PD). So is there good substance abuse training online to address these issues?
For many clinicians, substance abuse is not within their main practice specializations. But therapist resources for substance abuse can be such an important tool for helping those who experience substance use difficulties.
This is especially true considering that substance abuse can exacerbate other difficulties, and vice versa. For example, trauma and substance abuse can often interact with each other to increase suffering overall. And research finds that treating both PTSD and SUD at the same time appears to provide the best outcome.
Newer research also emphasizes a “menu” of research-based treatment options for substance use disorders, as opposed to one treatment being best. Which treatment will work largely depends on the individual and can be difficult to predict.
For those of us without a substance abuse specialization, its helps to start with the basics. Then later, we can get savvy about effectively choosing and delivery certain treatments. To this end, there is a good substance abuse training online from Concept. This training helps clinicians understand foundations of substance abuse theory and assessment.
The training includes everything from the established theories behind how substance abuse develops to assessing substance use disorders and recognizing common patterns. It even provides information on psychopharmacological treatments.
Pros: This program boasts the ability to cover a lot of information in a relatively brief training. The components it covers appear to be highly beneficial for a good grounding in understanding recognizing substance abuse disorders. A few front line effective substance abuse treatments are medication-based. So the psychopharmacology component also helps increase therapist resources for those of us who did not go to med school.
Limits: This program does not train therapists in how to deliver general or specific substance abuse treatments (the program itself does not pretend to do so). It also does not tackle ethical or legal concerns as well as multicultural aspects of substance abuse. However, subsequent programs by the same organization do.
Substance abuse difficulties occur for so many different clients and appear in so many settings. It can also complicate things for clients as well as our work with them. But good trainings available can boost our therapist resources and help us help them.
