This course dares to tackle a difficult and touchy subject by examining it at its most fundamental level – the insecurities that are revealed upon recovery that were always there behind the numbing of the addiction – and guiding your clients to navigate them with courage and discernment.
There are two ways to overcome a stress or past trauma. One is to simplify life, reduce the impositions, lower expectations. The other is to empower the personal strengths to be able to function above the stresses by expanding the understanding, and meeting expectations rationally. We aim to emphasize the latter.
Or, as Robert Browning stated in his poem, Andrea del Sarto, “Ah, but a man’s reach must exceed his grasp, or what’s a heaven for?”
Registration Requirements
This course is designed specifically for addiction counsellors and mental health workers. If you are in the caring profession, and are seeking to extend your reach or simply make your work more appealing and effective, we invite you to sign in and examine this course. You can then decide if you wish to participate in the full discussions and earn the CE credits that participation and understanding will give.
This course is a comprehensive study. Thus, we suggest that you arrange specific times to do the readings. Our suggestion is that you arrange two half-days for each section as doing a full section in one go can be tedious. We are prepared to initial any requests for those half-days that you can use with your agency. At the top of the LOGIN page, there is a request form for the days you plan to use. You can fill and submit that. If necessary, you can send to us as an attachment and we will endorse it for you.
The course is offered with credits that your professional body has assessed and endorsed. Thus, though it is self-administered, we take seriously your use and your responses. We will comment on each assessment and, if you request it, participate professionally in any webinar you request.
Course Content
Our course is unique and very informative. Instead of focusing on one of the many subjects that can challenge you in any aspect of your work, it dares to explore the source and show how these difficulties can be managed logically. It shows how to recruit the client into taking responsibility to become mentally stronger instead of leaning on your continued guidance because they are weak (or sick). Thus, it is a process of engagement and empowerment that requires analytical participation. It does not give you a technique but rather an insight into relating to each client as a capable human being who is only operating out of a state of existential ignorance and emptiness. It will work with the premise that the weakness is an integral part of addiction, sometimes caused by it, sometimes leading to it. Fixing the weakness can be necessary to heal the addiction or heal the person after recovery from the addiction.
It promises to awaken and ignite in you the passion to be a source of inspiration to your clients, not only a guide out of their morass of addiction.
That is why we have requested and have been granted twenty-five CE credits. You will be challenged to think, but your efforts will be greatly rewarded. When you register, you will get unrestricted access to the structured lessons to begin your exploration. Though you will be invited to use the site as a resource to engage clients and analyze their needs for the full year, we do encourage you to complete it within the first three months. This will ensure continuity as each lesson progresses to the next and uses the previous.
Content Description
The content is offered as three modules.
Module 1. The Analysis LOOK WHERE YOU CAN’T SEE
The fears and capabilities of any person are locked within their psyche. No matter how they are displayed as unhealthy behaviours or unstable moods, you still do not know what is going on within the person until that person chooses to reveal them to you. The ability to get the person to let you into their inner sanctum is both a skill and trust. We will explore how to get them.
Module 2. Building The Foundation EXAMINE WHERE NO INSTRUMENT CAN TAKE YOU
Knowing the fears of your client means knowing fears, how they are generated, what evokes them, and how they are affected by the person’s depth of understanding. You have to be able to measure that, but not with a physical instrument. You need the instrument of a great depth of understanding and perspicacity
Module 3. Guiding the Application HEAL WHAT YOU CAN’T TOUCH
You are treating the mind, not only stifling the behaviour. You cannot touch it and no medication can. Chemicals can disconnect it and that is what you are working with. The only person who can touch it is the person him/herself. Therefore, you have to know how to guide the person to heal him/herself.
Learning Objectives
The learning objectives of this course are
- To feel competent working with the intelligence of the client and bolstering it through logical guidance and realistic engagement so they develop and expand a powerful self-realization and self-actualization
- To be comfortable seeing each client, no matter what is the behavior or personality display, primarily as a capable human intelligence that has to be ignited but for whom the behavior or attitude serves an immediate purpose.
- To be able to steadfastly recognize and accept that our job is to discover, and help that person discover that purpose, leading them to both have less destructive options and a reduced dependency on established behaviors meant to serve that purpose.
Delivery
The course is delivered as an on-demand online course. It is delivered through a variety of media – PowerPoint presentations, audiovisual tutorials, audiovisual (fireside) chats, and essays. It is delivered in three sections as displayed above. At the end of each section there is a quiz that is meant only to determine your participation . It is not a measure of your acceptance since we are offering discussions on a subject that is still in its infancy. We encourage you to do the quiz at the end of each section.
The above deliveries form the complete course that has been approved for CE credits. In addition, we offer three other connections:
- The private message box that allows you to send a secure, private message to us. This is discrete and will never be revealed to your governing body, employer, or other peers. You can challenge or request deeper information. This we will provide even if it requires research on our part.
- Webinars you can book from your end. We will try to conduct them with small groups so that interaction is positive and everyone gets to discuss concerns or questions openly.
- A full year of continued, unrestricted access whereby you can offer suggestions or revisit the course for your own erudition. You also can use the lessons as resources your clients can use under your direction and guidance.
These three latter activities are not considered part of your CE credits and participation does not add to your credits, but they are offered pro bono to all participants in the course for you to better understand and apply the strategies.
We are inviting you to the freedom of creative counseling. We look forward to sharing it with you..
Credits
This course has been approved for 25 hours CE credits by:
