Introduction
Substance abuse is known to be the harmful use of substances that are psychoactive including illicit drugs and alcohol. The individuals who are under illicit drugs do experience negative health consequences. The substance abuse counseling group to be formed will act as a combination of both support and treatment meant to assist various individuals especially the youths to break free from alcohol and drug addiction. As a part of a rehabilitation program, the identified group therapy will play a significant function in helping clients emotionally and mentally overcome substance dependence.
The group will be based on a closed therapy session, to maintain a sense of validity and the involved individuals will develop a sense of intimacy. The closed type will enable seriousness because the involved individuals recognize each other to have been involved with legitimate concerns. With appropriate treatment, a closed type of therapy will lead to successful and lasting sobriety. Recognized as a treatment modality that is immense and can be utilized in various settings such as casual, outpatient, residential, and inpatient settings. With the adoption of closed therapy, the group is able to form an ongoing source of support for other individuals with the same conditions.
Duration and Payment
The group has scheduled its sessions to take at least 4 months for its addicted clients to recover and gain full control of themselves. The group will achieve this by conducting several episodes to facilitate and promote recovery within the specified duration (Payne, Liebling-Kalifani, & Joseph, 2007). The amount payable varies greatly and is dependable on the level of care that an individual needs. The program that requires the highest level of care in residential treatment, this type of program is therefore considered to be the most expensive. The outpatient program does cost less and does not offer intensive support for sustained recovery. For inpatient and residential rehabilitation, the amount that should be subscribed for 7 sessions per week is $49/mo. while outpatient rehabilitation costs $29/mo.
Purpose and Benefits of the Group
Substance abuse groups meant the creation of a therapeutic alliance with various addicts. The therapeutic alliance is a significant step that the group will always consider since the counselor should work towards earning the trust of the patient, to be able to effectively assist (Roberts, 2012). Through the therapeutic alliance, the addicts consider the counselors trustworthy and that their interest is always prioritized. Additionally, the substance abuse counseling group is responsible for the facilitation of the patient’s recovery (The Recovery Village, 2022). The group will help patients in identifying their own patterns of abuse, which can create a possibility for effective treatment. The counselors will always be in a position of identifying the possibilities that empower and motivates the patients for positive outcomes (Farber, 2006). The group will also be of great assistance in the prevention of relapse among the addicts. This could be done by engaging the patients in developing a relapse prevention plan, to overcome the chronic nature of addiction. The counseling group will always engage the family members of the affected individuals, this will enable the patient to gauge the ways to help the addict. Lastly, the group counseling will be in a position to refer addicts with various conditions to different favorable support groups for further or more specialized assistance.
Processes
Steps to Publicize the Project and Gather Participants for the Counseling Group
First, I would make a suitable list of those individuals or addicts that the group is in a position to help. This will be done to identify potential individuals who are viable for the team. Substance abuse deals with addicts who are in danger of emotional, social, and physical harm due to abuse of psychoactive drugs, such as illegal drugs, pain medications, or alcohol (Melchior et al., 2019). This will help find out the interested individuals and those who are likely to consider joining and refer more individuals who are willing to join. Additionally, coming up with the contact for individuals who have already identified themselves as members, is also another strategy for publicizing. The group goals should also be formulated and implemented before furthering the advertisement to more individuals.
Secondly, formulating the goals as per medical ethics is one of the best strategies that ensure that counselors and the patients always stick to the proper norms that are aimed at improving the situation of the affected patients. At the start of the group, only the general goals can be formed, this is for the provision of proper guidance in accordance with the prevailing ethics and legal conditions recommended in a given state. With the formulated goals as per the ethics and legal, various advertisement strategies can be adopted to make the service public.
Thirdly, there are other several steps that would be viable to publicize the group counseling, one of the steps includes, considering the suitable form of advertising media that may include; digital advertisement, social media, press advertising, email marketing, and direct mail, and media advertisement. After considering the appropriate ethical and legal measures, looking for potential clients will then serve a great purpose in the success of the group. One of the appropriate advertising means will be through the press, with the utilization of magazines and newspaper to convince the affected individuals to join (Drummond, O’Toole, & McGrath, 2020). The content of the advert should be structured in a manner that is convincing and that aim at gathering the participants. The advert must also detail the different subscription plans, the organization of the schedule, and the different types of individuals recommended.
Suitable Venue for Substance Abuse Counselling
Some of the areas that may act as venues for counseling include; medical facilities, residential homes, learning institutions, and rehabilitation centers. Favorable venues identified are to act as ample area for the therapy session should be non-confrontational and encourages dialogues among the individuals involved. In addition, some other requirements of the venues, sound or voice regulation, the individual outside or in the adjacent room should not hear what is said by the patients. The venues must be in a way that no one is able to witness whatever is taking place or those in session.
Preparation of the Counselling Group
A Pre-Group Meeting
Pre-group meeting will be essential in preparing the individuals for the major meeting. The meeting is meant for formal introduction, various members are able to recognize and know each other, and this will lead to the creation of a community with a similar goal. Pre-group meeting will also be conducted to enable the formulation of the rules that are to guide the activities that are to be conducted throughout each subscription session. The involved patients or victims are also in a position to familiarize themselves with the settings where the sessions will be taking place.
Rules
Some of the rules that are viable for closed substance counseling therapy groups include:
- As a closed group, membership is not open to everyone and anyone who might want to join in the counseling session at any given time.
- Punctuality; every individual is expected to be at the session by the agreed dates and ready for the task to be tackled.
- Maintaining privacy and confidentiality is key and each one should adhere to that; this is because the testimonies and the personal information shared by the group members should not be told to outsiders (Dies, 1973).
- The counselor should consider every individual’s opinion and turn-taking, this is to enable or build a good rapport (Vassilopoulos, & Brouzos, 2012).
- No kind of discrimination is allowed, this may lead to automatic disqualification from the group.
- Hygiene and proper dressing code are recommended, and everyone is advised to come in a formal dressing code.
Tasks
There are several tasks that are to be carried out while the session is on, all are based on the principles of medical ethics or aim at the benefit of the patient. Tasks that are to be carried out in the group therapy are to be categorized into various group stages that include; those carried out in the initial, transition, working, and the understanding stage.
In the initial therapy stage, the involved counselors are to establish group expectations and requirements. By doing this, the individual will have to ensure that the expectations outlined in the roles, trust, and goals are adhered to accordingly (Krebs et al., 2018). The counselor will also be open and ready to support every member who seeks further consultancy. Additionally, in the transitional stage, although very difficult because everyone is anxious and unable to open up about their alcoholic or illicit drug abuse, the counselors should know the proper ways to handle group members through this stage (Schneider-Corey et al., 2018). Therefore, the task to be handled in this section is to ensure that all members acclimatize and get to overcome their defensive and resistant nature. While in the working stage, the members of the group will be able to tell of the triggers, causes, and impacts of the substance abuse in their lives. They will share their vivid experience of substance abuse in their lives and why they need to stop. The last stage or the understanding stage entails activities such as relapse prevention and reflection on the experience while they were in the session.
Goals
Some of the goals that the substance abuse counseling group will focus on are:
- Ensuring the principle of beneficence is adhered to, the individual goals of each patient are achieved (Chang, & Nylund, 2013). Additionally, lowering relapse among the addict by 90% will be achieved by constant and close monitoring of the patients.
Appropriate Leadership Style
The type of leadership style to be adopted during counseling is transformational and participative, all of which play a significant function in the development of a relationship that is positive between the counselor and the supervisor (Harper, 2020).
Group Session(s) Structure
Group Evaluation (feedback process)
The evaluations will be carried out through questionnaires that will be posted on the counseling group website for everyone to access including the family members of the recruited addicts. The same type of questionnaires will also be distributed to the patients to provide their comments on the services.
Implications/Considerations
Some of the challenges that might occur during the counseling session include; unexpressed feelings, broken boundaries, fear, and vulnerabilities.
Unexpressed feelings are one of the major challenges since most people do not find it possible for them to express their feelings where there exist negative emotions. This tells the reasons why openness and the existing situation led to joyful emotions. Some of the major reasons that hinder the sharing of personal or confidential issues are fear and vulnerabilities (Macnair-Semands, & Lese, 2000). Fear comes in when the patients do not trust one another with their confidential details (Kivlighan Jr, & Mullison, 1988). Additionally, broken boundaries may result when one of the involved members of the group individuals is not trustworthy and could spill the secrets of the members to outsiders (Ignatius, & Kokkonen, 2007). It is because of such situations that most members may be unwilling to speak and get help out of their inner emotions.
According to the nature of the group, for instance, the intense nature of the session may make some of the members feel uncomfortable, such situations may deter some members from continuing with the sessions. Additionally, the therapists should recognize that clashes between members’ personalities may result. Some of the individuals for instance the introverted fellows may feel intimidated by others who speak loudly and are assertive in the group, the introverts may misinterpret them as ignorant individuals. Contrasting individual opinions on various ethical or moral stances can also lead to personality clashes. Some individuals in the group may interpret rejection, this may result when the person has experienced rejection in the past. Low self-esteem and social anxiety, may result in high sensitivity to actual rejection from the group, a situation that could cause outbursts and angry reactions. Social phobia and being able to speak in front of a group is a concern that should be addressed by the therapist for the affected individuals to feel comfortable staying in the group.
Conclusion
The proposed Substance abuse counseling group is based on minimizing the substance abuse cases that are among the youth. The group therapy is meant to run the full sessions for the affected for not less than 4 months for the benefit of the patients. While considering joining this group, the involved is to subscribe as per their preferred package and the kind of treatment. It should be noted that the most expensive subscription is meant for ensuring that there is the proper treatment for the patients that the less expensive. The therapy should be advertised accordingly, to lead to more recruitment of individuals who are addicted to substance abuse. Additionally, it will be significantly viable to effectively tackle the addictive problems of various youths. There are some features that the counseling group should have to be able to attain its course. The group has to have its, Purpose and Benefits, the group has to be publicized to ensure there is a maintained or constant flow of clients as sessions of each category end. The group leader of the counselor should also consider that there is proper or ample space that serves as a venue for conducting counseling. Additionally, the proper preparation should be made, and effective rules, tasks, and roles should also be identified for the effectiveness of the group.
References
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Vassilopoulos, S. P., & Brouzos, A. (2012). A pilot person-centred group counselling for university students effects on social anxiety and self-esteem. Hellenic Journal of Psychology, 9, 222-239.