Interview with substance abuse counselor: Mr. Smith

For my interview, I selected Mr. Smith (not his real name), a substance abuse counselor who approaches his practice from the point-of-view of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). CBT has become one of the most popular therapies for treating substance abuse. When I asked why, Mr. Smith replied: "because it works." Substance abuse has long been regarded as one of the most intractable problems in the mental health profession. Substance abuse has a biological cause; is often exacerbated by environmental factors such as growing up in a society where drug abuse is normalized and prevalent; and then fundamentally rewires the subject's reward center in the brain, so the pleasures of the drug outweigh all other pleasures. One of the few techniques to 'unwire' this negative perspective has been CBT. Mr. Smith believes very strongly in the CBT format: he has a M.A. In clinical...
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