TAP 21 - SAMHSA Store - Substance Abuse and Mental Health ...

Addiction Counseling Competencies
Recovery – achieving and sustaining a state of health in which the individual no longer engages
in problem behavior or psychoactive substance use and is able to establish a lifestyle that
embraces health and positive goals.
Regression – a mechanism whereby an individual retreats to the use of early-life or less mature
responses in attempting to cope with stress, fears, pain, or memories.
Relapse – the return to a pattern of substance abuse or the process during which indicators
appear before the client’s resumption of substance use.
Relapse prevention – a variety of interventions designed to teach people with substance use
disorders to cope more effectively and to overcome the stressors/triggers in their environments
that may lead them back into drug use and dependence. The interventions can be placed in five
categories: assessment procedures, insight/awareness raising techniques, coping skills training,
cognitive strategies, and lifestyle modification.
Reliability – the degree to which a measure is consistent.
Resilience – the ability of an individual to cope with or overcome the negative effects of risk
factors or to “bounce back” from a problem. This capability develops and changes over time,
is enhanced by protective factors, and contributes to the maintenance or enhancement of health.
Risk factors – conditions for a group, individual, or identified geographic area that increase the
likelihood of a substance use problem or substance abuse.
Screening – gathering and sorting of information used to determine whether an individual has
a problem with substance use and, if so, whether a detailed clinical assessment is appropriate.
Selective preventive interventions – activities targeted to individuals or a subgroup of the
population whose risk of developing a disorder is significantly higher than average.
Self-determination – the extent to which individuals control their lives.
Self-help group – a supportive, educational, usually change-oriented mutual-help group that
addresses a single life problem or condition shared by all members.
Service coordination – the process of prioritizing, managing, and implementing activities in an
individual’s treatment plan.
Significant others – family member, sexual partner, and others on whom an individual is
dependent for meeting all or part of his or her needs.
Sobriety – the quality or condition of abstinence from psychoactive substance abuse supported
by personal responsibility in recovery.
Special populations – diverse groups of individuals sharing a particular characteristic,
circumstance, or problem.
Spirituality – a belief system that acknowledges and appreciates the influence in one’s life of a
higher power or state of being.
Stage of change – transtheoretical description of one of several stages through which a person
passes in moving from active use to treatment and abstinence.
Stage of readiness – the individual’s awareness of need to change. Can be influenced by
external pressure (family, legal system, or employer) or internal pressure (physical health
concerns).
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