The Addiction Counsellor’s Toolbox

To become effective at addiction counselling, the addiction counsellor must make a commitment to learning and develop a set of core skills that will collectively define their individual counseling toolbox. The Addiction Counsellor’s Toolbox provides both addiction counsellors in training and seasoned professionals with core skills needed to work with persons with addictive disorders. These skills include communication, counselling, crisis intervention, problem solving, assessment, and treatment planning skills, as well as counselling theories and techniques and addiction recovery tools. Addiction counsellors need to develop a robust toolbox of skills so they have the flexibility to adapt and effectively match clients’ needs. In The Addiction Counselor’s Toolbox, Dr. Howatt provides a timely, user-friendly, and current set of skills and tools to fill such a toolbox. Dr. Howatt has more than 18 years’ experience as an addiction counsellor. He is an internationally certified alcohol and drug addictions specialist, gambling addictions specialist, registered professional counsellor, and registered social worker who has also completed post-doctoral work in addiction studies at UCLA School of Medicine. He is a faculty member of Nova Scotia Community College, where he teaches in the addiction counsellor program for the School of Health and Human Services. He is author of numerous books, including The Addiction Counselor’s Desk Reference, and is coeditor of the Wiley Series on Treating Addictions.