All Things Substance

Why should mental health therapists assess substance use? Is that really in our scope? My answer is a resounding, Yes. In this episode I go through ten reasons why assessing for substance use is vital to our work and to our client's well-being.

Therapists and psychiatrists want the same thing: for our clients to be well. We don't always get the chance to work together. I wanted to see what we could do to bridge the gap between us. I interviewed a psychiatrist friend of mine, Dr. Jess Beachkofsky, about what it's like to be a psychiatrist, what she's focusing on during her appointments and how we can help.

Why should mental health therapists assess substance use? Is that really in our scope? My answer is a resounding, Yes. In this episode I go through ten reasons why assessing for substance use is vital to our work and to our client's well-being.

If you google "substance use CEU", there are a ton of results. How do you even know where to start and what to pick? I'm about to make a bold statement, I know what you need to know to work with substance use and I can teach it to you in 6 weeks. I'm so excited to announce Charting the Course, my 6 week live taught course to give you what you need to feel confident and competent in addressing client substance use. Check out today's episode to hear all about it.

Some therapists worry that adding substance use to their scope of practice will expose them to more risk and liability. Our licenses are super important to us and we want to protect ourselves. Today we are going to be talking about what risk there is, if any, when we take on substance use clients.

Do you feel equipped to work with substance use? I'm curious about this because many therapists don't feel skilled enough. It makes me wonder what skills therapists think they need to be "ready" to do it. You likely have all the skills you need. Check out this episode on what skills you need to work with substance use.

I've been suggesting that regular mental health therapists can work with substance use. But what does that mean? Doesn't treatment have to be some specific techniques, length of time and process? What is treatment really like? Let's take a closer look.

Avoiding topics of conversation is super normal for people. We work hard to help our clients talk about the hard things and to face the things that need to come to light. There's an area that we might not be asking about that could make a huge difference in our work.

What is recovery? Recovery really is, at its core, the process of change. It is a living and active process through which people make long lasting changes in their lives. There isn't an end date or a destination. There are stages to it though and everyone goes through it differently from another person. In today's episode, we'll talk about all of this and more.

Stages of addiction can help us understand how severe someone's use is and if you need to refer out. What's the difference between dependence and addiction? When does normal use move to risky use? On today's episode we'll talk about the 6 stages of addiction.