Preparing Students for Real Clinical Work

For more than half a century, substance use has been taught primarily through disease-based and abstinence-only models shaped by criminalization rather than clinical reality. As a result, one of the most common issues in modern practice remains siloed as a “specialty,” instead of treated as part of ordinary psychotherapy. Students enter the field unprepared for how substance use actually appears in therapy: quietly, relationally, often hidden, and bound up with shame and ambivalence.

This course offers a necessary counterpoint—grounded in contemporary psychological understanding and real-world clinical conditions. Students learn how to address one of the most dangerous clinical problems—clients hiding their use—by creating conditions where honesty is possible and treatment can actually work.

Who this is for ?

• Social work, psychology, counseling, and MFT programs
• Graduate students preparing for real-world clinical practice
• Faculty seeking to modernize substance-use education

What students gain ?

• Skills for handling risk and ambiguous clinical situations
• A continuum-based understanding that moves beyond abstinence mandates
• Tools for working with ambivalence, mixed goals, and gradual change
• Integration of substance-use work into ordinary therapeutic relationships