title: Treatment attitudes of recovered alcoholic counselors and nonalcoholic counselors.
abstract: The advent of the profession of alcoholism counseling has generated concern about the clinical treatment attitudes of counselors who are recovered alcoholics. The treatment attitudes of eight recovered counselors and eight nonalcoholic counselors at a U.S. Navy alcohol treatment facility were compared by rating the counselors' perception of client clinical characteristics, diagnosis, and preference for treatment modality and goals. Recovered counselors perceived: greater psychological dependence on alcohol, higher probability of substitution of another drug for alcohol, psychologists as less helpful, Antabuse as more helpful, abstinence as a more necessary treatment goal, and transactional analysis as a more helpful treatment. No significant differences remained between the attitudes of both groups of counselors after intervening counselor characteristics (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous activity and alcohol training experience) were controlled. The findings may indicate reticence among nonalcoholic counselors to challenge traditional alcoholism treatment methods and theories.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000342:Affective Symptoms / Q000523:psychology; D000437:Alcoholism / Q000523:psychology / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D003376:Counseling; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000523:psychology; D014152:Transactional Analysis