Description
Motivation for Change in Substance Abuse Treatment (6 Hours)
Course Description
This 6-hour course utilizes information presented in TIP 35 Enhancing Motivation for Change in Substance Abuse Treatment. It is an introductory course focusing on the stages of change and motivational interviewing. It embraces a fundamentally different way to conceptualize motivation. In this approach, motivation is viewed as a dynamic and changeable state rather than a static trait. This course shows how clinicians can influence this change process by developing a therapeutic relationship, one that respects and builds on the client’s autonomy and, at the same time, makes the treatment counselor a participant in the change process. The course also describes different motivational interventions that can be used at all stages of change, from pre-contemplation and preparation to action and maintenance.
Goals / Objectives
By participating in this internet based course, the trainee will:
• Be able to describe and utilize the stages of change model
• Understand how the concepts of motivation and change have evolved in recent years.
• Utilize intervention techniques that can enhance the clients’ motivation.
• Link motivational intervention techniques with the stages−of−change model.
• Recognize motivational interviewing as a therapeutic style and how it can be used to interact with substance−using clients to help them resolve issues related to their ambivalence.
Your Course Instructor:
Robert Shearer, PhD
Dr. Robert A. Shearer is a retired professor of criminal justice in the College of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University. He has been teaching, training, consulting, and conducting research in the fields of criminal justice, human behavior, and addictions for over thirty-six years. He is the author of over sixty professional and refereed articles in criminal justice and behavior. He is also the author of Interviewing: Theories, Techniques, and Practices, 5th edition published by Prentice Hall. Dr. Shearer has also created over a dozen measurement, research, and assessment instruments in criminal justice and addictions including Law Enforcement Strategies Scale (LSS), Correctional Strategies Scale (CSS), Probation Strategies Scale (PSS), Correctional Treatment Resistance Scale (CTRS), the Comprehensive Substance Abuse Counseling Orientation Inventory (CSACOI), and the Substance Abuse Consequences Scale (SACS).
He has been a psychotherapist in private practice and served as a consultant to dozens of local, state, and national agencies. He has taught courses in interviewing, human behavior, substance abuse counseling, drugs and crime, and correctional counseling. He is currently developing an Interrogation Tactics Scale that measures levels of approval of coercion in interrogations with suspected offenders.
He has been the president of the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counseling and editor of the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling. Recently, Dr. Shearer completed a survey of the beliefs of over 300 substance abuse counselors in a large correctional system in the southwestern U.S. He is a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation of Oklahoma.