Individual Counseling
Path to Recovery matches treatment, interventions, and services to each individual’s particular needs which is critical to his or her ultimate success in returning to productive functioning in the family, workplace, and society.
Individual counseling is an important, supportive adjunct to group sessions but not the primary form of treatment. Whereas concurrent psychiatric interventions and addiction counseling are appropriate for clients with co-occurring substance use and mental disorders, most individual counseling in our program addresses the immediate problems stemming from clients’ substance use disorders and their current efforts to achieve and maintain abstinence. Counseling typically does not address the client’s underlying, longstanding conscious and subconscious conflicts that may have contributed to substance use. Many of the readily available counseling manuals for substance abuse treatment have enhanced components for individuals or orient the entire approach to individual counseling.
A 30- to 50-minute individual counseling session is typically a scheduled part of the program and occurs at least weekly during the initial treatment stage. A client is assigned a primary counselor who strives to establish a close, collaborative therapeutic alliance. An individual counseling session frequently follows a standard format. A counselor may ask the client about reactions to the recent group meeting, explore how the client spent time since the last session, ask how the client is feeling, inquire about drug and alcohol use, and ask whether there are any urgent issues. The counselor helps the client review reactions to recent group topics, reviews treatment plans and coping strategies, addresses fears and anxieties related to the change process, provides personalized feedback on urine toxicology and Breathalyzer™ results, and probes into sensitive issues that are difficult to discuss in the group. Counselors also help clients access services they need that are outside the treatment program’s capabilities and plan the transition to another level of care or discharge. A counseling session usually ends with a summary of the client’s plans and a schedule for the next few days.
