Customer Reviews

Chemical Dependency Counseling: A Practical Guide

5 star:		(12)
4 star:		(1)
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2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

At the last American Society of Addiction Medicine meeting in New York, I found out that most treatment centers were using this book. I read the text and I can see why. The book tells you how to do everything you need to know to treat addiction well. Besides, it makes you feel good about yourself and what you do as a counselor. The book is incredibly loving and healing for anyone to read, even the patient. It contains all of the tests and exercises needed to take a patient through treatment. It leaves no stone unturned.

I teach this college course to new counselors. By the time they are through with this treatment manual they really know what they are doing. Everything a counselor needs to know is covered. The book is informative, meticulously researched and fun. It makes students feel good about themselves. It is the simply best text in the business. I highly recommend this book.

I checked the most prominent treatment centers, and every one of them use this book to train their staff. At the American Society of Addiction Medicine this is the treatment they recommend and it's the one the doctors went through themselves. No question, this is the best book on chemical dependency counseling in the world today.

This book teaches addiction counselors exactly what to do in treatment. It leaves no stone unturned and covers everything a counselor needs to know to offer the best treatment in the world. Besides the book makes you feel good about yourself. All of the major treatment centers in the US had a part in making this book great. At every center this book is within arms reach of every good counselor in the building. All counselors should have this book and use it often. I am a clinical director and I give it to all of my new counselors--they love it.

Perkinson is competent and caring, structured and paced. But it's a bit old, as if all CD treatment was unadulterated Minnesota Model, 28 day inpatient care. Now , in fact, more than 1/2 of those facilities have died on the vine due to managed care, and outpatient rules. Plus we've got patient placement criteria, all kinds of research from Project MATCH and etc., and new techniques like motivational enhancement, stages of change. Maybe if Perkinson put out a second edition and updated it, we'd find it more useful

This book is a must for every clinician working in the field. I use the material working with both adult and adolescent clients. The concepts are written in a manner which make it appropriate for any group/individual regardless of age, sex, education level, or ethnic background. The Spirituality exercises are the best I have ever seen.

No bones about it, this book is the real deal. I have been a counselor a long time and this is exactly what we do. No complex theories to bore you, no useless jarjon, just the facts. It is what the field has needed a long time. Most books are boring but this one is fun. It made me feel good about myself.

I bought this for an addictions class I took as part of my masters, and found it to be very helpful. I strongly recommend it.

I am using this book as a textbook in a substance abuse class which I am taking in college. I am shocked by the authors prejudice and reliance on god and Alcoholics Anonymous. It is not very scientific. The authors seem to believe that god is the only solution ...for pretty much everything. They even go so far as to have us tell patients with anti social personality disorder that "the higher power is watching you". What a hoot! I discussed this approach with psychiatrists and got a big thumbs down on these so called therapies.
Actually, the book is kind of schizophrenic in itself.....on the one hand, we are to use cognitive behavioral techniques and rationaly analize with patients their behaviors, and then turn right around and lead them to believe in unseen, unprovable, supernatural beings which will transform their lives!
The authors offer no objective data on the effectiveness of AA and even less data on the theory of supernatural beings ability to help out addiction patients or alcoholics.
If I were a medical student and opened a modern medical text which instructs us to bleed the patient,I would have the same feeling that I have when opening this textbook.
If you read the biographies of the authors, you will see their other religiously oriented works......I feel decieved.

I purchased this book for my Counseling Substance Abuse Course. It is easy to read and will be very useful in my future profession.