Description
Course Summary
This course is the second in a series of four courses designed for substance abuse
treatment counselors; family therapists are a secondary audience. The course
should be of interest to anyone who wants to learn more about family therapy. The
purpose of the course is to help counselors and family therapists acquire a basic
understanding of each others’ fields and incorporate aspects of each others’ work
into their own repertoire.
This second module(course) discusses the fields of substance abuse treatment and
family therapy. It presents some of the basic theories, concepts, and techniques
from each field so they can be applied in treatment regardless of the setting or
theoretical orientation. Finally, a section for family therapists provides basic
information about theory, treatment modalities, and the role of 12-Step programs
in substance abuse treatment.
Course Goals/objectives
The first goal and objective for this course is for the student to understand the
differences in theory and practice as they apply to:
• Family interventions;
• Spirituality;
• Process and content;
• Focus;
• Identity of the client;
• Self-disclosure by the counselor;
• Regulations;
• Screening, assessment, and referral;
• Screening and assessment issues;
• Constraints and barriers;
• Context factors that affect motivation and resistance;
• The stages of change;
• Cultural barriers to treatment;
• Integrating substance abuse treatment and family therapy.
The second goal and objective for this course is for the student to understand
family therapy including:
• Traditional models of family therapy
• Behavioral Contracting;
• Bepko and Krestan’s theory;
• Behavioral Marital Therapy;
• Brief Strategic Family Therapy;
• Multidemensional Family Therapy;
• Multifamily Groups;
• Multisystemic Therapy;
• Network Therapy;
• Solution-focused Therapy;
• Stanton’s Therapeutic techniques;
• Wegscheider-Cruse’s Theory;
• The elements of the family as a system;
• Family therapy techniques that substance abuse counselors can use.
The third goal and objective for this course is for the student to understand substance
abuse treatment for family therapists including:
• Traditional understandings of substance abuse;
• Common treatment modalities;
• Detoxification services;
• Short-term residential treatment;
• Lon-term residential treatment;
• Outpatient treatment;
• Opioid addiction outpatient treatment;
• 12-Step self-help programs.
About the Instructor:
Dr. Robert A. Shearer is a retired professor of Criminal Justice, Sam Houston State University. He received his Ph.D. in Counseling and Psychology from Texas A & M University, Commerce. Prior to teaching Criminal Justice, he taught Educational Psychology at Mississippi State University on campus and in the extension program across rural Mississippi during the civil rights era.
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.
He has been a psychotherapist in private practice and served as a consultant to dozens of local, state, and national agencies. His interests continue to be substance abuse program assessment and evaluation. He has taught courses in interviewing, human behavior, substance abuse counseling, drugs-crime-social policy, assessment and treatment planning, and educational psychology. He has also taught several university level psychology courses in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice Institutional Division, led group therapy in prison, trained group therapists, and served as an expert witness in various courts of law.
He has been the president of the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counseling and the editor of the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling as well as a member of many Criminal Justice, criminology, and counseling professional organizations prior to retirement.