COUN 5004: Collaboration And Advocacy

Consultation and Advocacy
COUN 5004
Cappella University
October 6, 2013

Consultation and Advocacy
How do you see yourself related to advocacy or consultation as you become a professional within your area of specialization? Within your own definition, do you see consultation and advocacy similar or different?
A job of a counselor primarily consists in assisting people in understanding and overcoming their problems which are psychological in nature. The job of an addiction counselor is to help people overcome their addiction and make sure that it does not interfere with their lives. Since addiction is a battle with feelings, this field requires not only to engage people but also to guide them. However, drug addiction
(2010) collected a list of things that counselors usually do while assisting their client, and this serves as an excellent means to understand what drug addiction counseling might involve. A counselor has to build trust with the client as addiction is a personal problem which is linked to the emotions of the addict. To ensure that the client follows the consultant more than his own emotions is essential in tackling the problem. It is also important to be vigilant and consult with other professionals to ensure better treatment. Furthermore, successful therapy means a healthy involvement of the client and their trust in the treatment; hence, it is essential to empower the client to identify solutions and adapt them. It is also significant to understand the possible influence of client’s circumstances or experiences on the issue of drug addiction, and suggest multiple solutions to solve the problem in order to empower the client and observe his/ her behavior to see the effects of treatment and act accordingly. Furthermore, the counselor can apply interview techniques to understand the client and gather data which can aid in observing and analyzing the client and their behavior. Since the treatment involves continuous care, it is also necessary to work for increasing access to all kinds of resources for the clients, especially if the client is in an institution where access can be
Even though nobody from his immediate family, i.e., his parents and siblings, suffers from a drug problem, he has distant relatives with minor alcohol problems. He is an average achiever who has a considerable social gathering and has had good feedback from his previous teachers. His parents have not been strict with him before, but they realize that now he is entering an important phase of his life which will impact his career. So they are tough with their son and keep a close eye on him. There is also a lot of competition in high school. Furthermore, the people around him are also experimenting with new things, and these things mostly include drugs. In short, Mark has never been scolded by his parents. He also has deal with the tougher competition and he also feels that he needs to belong to some group to survive high school. So, one can see that the boy is under quite a lot of pressure from his parents, school teachers and peers, and his hormonal changes are not making things easier for him. So Mark started using minor drugs to deal with the pressure and to be part of the ‘cool guys’ in high school. When his parents discovered it, they decided that Mark was in need of proper counseling to tackle his drug