ICB News - Spotlight on Trainer

Spotlight on Trainer

IAODAPCA will begin spotlighting our most valued and prestigious trainers in the ICB Newsletter. This will allow them to share their valuable strategies and techniques which you may find useful in your daily plans. In this issue we are please to turn the Spotlight on . . . . . . .

Mr. Mark Sanders,CADC

15 STRATEGIES FOR ENGAGING DIFFICULT-TO-REACH CLIENTS
WITH SUBSTANCE USE DISORDERS

Many chemically dependent clients are difficult to engage in counseling for myriad reasons, ranging from mandated status, a lack of motivation to discontinue use, discomfort opening up to strangers, initial therapeutic approaches that increase resistance, and confrontation techniques that leave clients feeling defensive; thus, 50% of chemically dependent clients fail to make their second counseling session. Below is a list of fifteen strategies to engage chemically dependent clients in counseling.

1. Provide a welcoming atmosphere. When clients are met with a friendly greeting from a receptionist, are invited into a waiting room that contains plants, pictures on the wall, and pleasant music, etc., this can go a long way to facilitating rapport.|

2. Offer a snack or soft drink while the client waits.

3. Exude warmth. In the book, Becoming Naturally Therapeutic, Jacqueline Small identifies research that reveals that counselor warmth helps facilitate client engagement.

4. Focus on strength and something the client does well as soon as possible during the rapport-building phase. Many chemically dependent clients are defensive and resistant to counseling because they feel they have failed. A strength-based approach can decrease that defensiveness.

5. Explore the client’s experience with counseling in the past, and if the experience was negative, let him or her know how the
experience will be different with you.

6. Utilize stage-based interventions. Many chemically dependent clients are in a variety of stages in terms of their readiness to
change, from pre-contemplation, in which the client has no clue that he or she has a problem, to maintenance, in which the client has been able to remain sober ongoing. In the book, Motivational Interviewing, William Miller shares research that reveals that stage-based interventions are effective in facilitating rapport building.

7. Minimize confrontation. Confrontation leads to resistance and premature termination.

8. Engage in mutual treatment planning. This respectful approach allows the client to be a partner in his or her own counseling.

9. Have a sense of humor. The shortest distance between two people is a good laugh.

10. Avoid power struggles.

11. Avoid early labels. Early labels can lead to clients feeling defensive and being more difficult to engage.

12. Be willing to have a sensitive discussion about race, gender, and other differences if they are barriers to communicating.

13. Ask for permission to give feedback.

14. Be aware of counter transference reactions. The negative reactions we have toward clients can increase their resistance to counseling.

15. Honor a variety of approaches to recovery. The addictions field has a history of assuming that there is only one way that people recover—namely, treatment followed by 12-step attendance. As the field of addictions treatment emerges, along with research, we are learning that clients have a variety of approaches to recovery, including solo recovery, virtual recovery, religious styles of recovery, medication-assisted recovery, harm reduction, 12-step recovery, and cultural pathways to recovery. Honoring the client’s pathway to recovery can be instrumental in reducing resistance.

Alfred Adler was quoted as having said, “If your only tool is a hammer, then every problem seems like a nail.” In this article we have outlined fifteen strategies for engaging difficult-to-reach clients with substance use disorders. We hope you find some of these strategies useful in your journey to help clients recover.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC, is a member of the faculty of the Addictions Studies Program at Governors State University. He is an international speaker whose presentations have reached thousands throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, and the Caribbean Islands.

Printed with permission

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