Examine the goals of positive psychology and explain how this approach will help Juanita obtain sobriety, focusing specifically on the concerns and dissatisfactions she has expressed.

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Assignment 4: Positive Psychology and Spirituality
Substance abuse counseling lends itself nicely to the integration of positive psychology and spirituality. While both of these therapy approaches have been explored for many years, the integration into substance abuse counseling is a relatively new development. As such, many clients may not be aware of the techniques in positive psychology and spirituality that can be of use in their recovery.
 
Juanita has been seeking treatment for her marijuana use from you for a month now. While she has significantly cut back on her substance use, she is having difficulty quitting and remaining abstinent for periods that last longer than a few days. In your counseling sessions, Juanita has mentioned that she feels very badly about herself—she feels guilty about being unable to quit and explains that she doesn’t think she is strong enough to quit altogether. She has also expressed nervousness that her boyfriend would no longer like her if she quit smoking, and she has expressed concern that if he leaves her, she wouldn’t be able to find a new boyfriend because she doesn’t believe she is pretty enough. Juanita is also unsatisfied with her job as a cashier at the local grocery store, but has expressed her opinion that she doesn’t think she is smart enough to get a better job. You know from Juanita’s history, that her mother was very critical of Juanita when she was a child and that her father was absent for most of her childhood. In high school, Juanita excelled at classes in biology and math, but she never attended college.
To help Juanita overcome her barriers to marijuana abstinence, write a summary of what you will cover in your next meeting with Juanita. Ensure that you cover the following points:
 

  • Explain the concepts of positive psychology to Juanita.
  • Examine the goals of positive psychology and explain how this approach will help Juanita obtain sobriety, focusing specifically on the concerns and dissatisfactions she has expressed.
  • Design at least two exercises based on positive psychology for Juanita to work on in between counseling sessions.
  • Explain spirituality to Juanita, emphasizing the differences between spirituality and religion.
  • Examine how spirituality and positive psychology can work together to help Juanita achieve her goals.

 
Write a 4–5-page paper in Word format. Use scholarly resources, including the textbook to support your ideas. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.

Describe the meaning of dual diagnosis and how it impacts counseling.

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Read the following scenario and then respond to the questions that follow:
 
You are a substance abuse counselor. Gregory, your new client, has come to you for help with his alcohol use problem. Gregory is married with three children and works as a sales representative for a large corporation in the city. In your first meeting with Gregory, you discover that his drinking began as a way to alleviate the anxiety he felt in social situations. Over time, Gregory began using alcohol more often. He found that every time he used alcohol, his anxiety lifted and he was able to be more at ease during work, out with colleagues, and at other such public events. Over time, Gregory realized he needed more alcohol than before to get the same anxiety relieving effects.
 
Two weeks ago, one of Gregory’s coworkers became suspicious that Gregory was drinking at work. That same day, while Gregory was driving home from work, he was pulled over by the police. He passed the field sobriety test and the officer let him off with a warning. These two events served as a wake-up call for Gregory as he realized his alcohol use may be beyond his control.
 
Gregory has made an appointment with you because he sincerely wants to curtail his alcohol use.
 
To help Gregory achieve his goals, write a paper that analyzes the components of his scenario. In your paper, ensure that you include the following information:
 

  • Summarize the history and usefulness of the four major contemporary treatment modalities (crisis intervention, individual counseling, group counseling, and family counseling).
  • Evaluate Gregory’s dual diagnosis (also referred to as “co-occurring disorders”) and the implications for counseling. Keep the following questions in mind:
    • Describe the meaning of dual diagnosis and how it impacts counseling.
    • Classify Gregory’s primary and secondary diagnoses.
    • Analyze the implications in treating a secondary diagnosis.
  • Evaluate the limitations for an alcohol and drug counselor when treating diagnoses other than those related to substance abuse. Describe the circumstances where the four treatment modalities might be useful in a dual diagnosis.
  • Recommend at least one treatment modality for Gregory and explain your recommendation using at least two scholarly references.

 
Write a 4–5-page paper in Word format. Use scholarly resources, including your textbook, to support your ideas. Your paper must be in Word format and include a title page and reference page in addition to the 4-5-pages of content. Apply APA 6th edition standards to the format of the paper, and the citation of sources.

Explain how pain causes complications in preventing relapse in sober clients.

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DESCRIBE THE MEANING OF DUAL DIAGNOSIS AND HOW IT IMPACTS COUNSELING.

One of the largest hurdles in recovering from a substance use disorder does not concern getting sober, but rather, staying sober over time. Relapse is a constant threat; clients are consistently battling against their triggers to remain sober. Additionally, many recovering users suffer from pain, sometimes due to the initial conditions that led them to use, or from conditions developed through their chronic substance use.
Keeping this in mind, respond to the following questions:
 

  • Evaluate the most common relapse triggers.
  • Analyze at least two relapse prevention strategies.
  • Explain how pain causes complications in preventing relapse in sober clients.
  • Hypothesize the risks and benefits in sober clients using pain medication as prescribed to help manage their pain.

 
Using information from the textbook, lecture materials, and other scholarly resources, write your initial response in approximately 300–400 words. Apply APA standards to citation of sources.
 
Assignment 2: LASA 1—Gregory’s Treatment
People that abuse substances have individual reasons for what first drove them to begin using these substances in the first place. Some clients started using them through experimentation, peer pressure, or curiosity. However, many users began using substances as a way of dealing with other issues in their lives, such as depression, anxiety, weight loss, or other physical or mental disorders. In still other cases, mental and physical disorders may result in response to chronic substance abuse. In these cases, it is important to determine what the co-occurring disorder is, as well as the substance abuse problem, in order to determine the best course of treatment.

Why do the negative health effects associated with thinness and attempts to be thin receive relatively little attention when compared with obesity?

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Chapter 15: Weight and Appearance 477
Sources: Spearing, M. (2001). “Eating Disorders: Facts About Eating Disorders and the Search for Solutions.” National Institute of Mental Health, http://www.nimh.nih. gov/publicat/eatingdisorders.cfm, accessed August 9, 2010; Soriano, C. G. (2004, June 22). “Mary-Kate Olsen Seeks Treatment for Eating Disorder.” USAToday. http://www.usatoday.com/life/people/2004-06-22-olsen-treatment_x.htm, accessed August 9, 2010.
Costs of Thinness
Eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa are increasingly common weight-related health issues that receive less attention than obesity and overweight. Anorexia and bulimia involve disordered eating behavior, such as eating very little for extended periods of time or eating extreme amounts in a short period of time, coupled with measures to binge or purge oneself of the food consumed. Both anorexia and bulimia are associated with intense fear of weight gain, inappropriate behavior to prevent weight gain, often including misusing laxatives, diuretics, or enemas, and excessive exercising.
Anorexia is essentially self-starvation. In response to being starved, the body slows down its processes to conserve energy. Negative health effects associated with anorexia include dry, brittle bones (osteoporosis), muscle loss and weakness, hair loss, severe dehydration (sometimes resulting in kidney failure), and disrupted menstrual cycles. Bulimia involves recurrent episodes of binge eating, sometimes accompanied by purging. The binge-eating episodes may last for hours or days, followed by guilt, disgust, and shame. Those suffering from bulimia are likely to be average or above average weight. Negative health effects resulting from bulimia include swelling of the stomach or pancreas, tooth decay (resulting from vomiting), abnormal heart rhythms, and muscle spasms.
Anorexia and bulimia cross racial, ethnic, age, and gender lines; however, young women are significantly more likely to develop them than others. Estimates suggest that between 0.5% and 3.7% of females will suffer from anorexia at some point in life and that between 1.1% and 4.2% will have bulimia at some point. The mortality rate for those with anorexia is 5.6% per decade, or twelve times higher than the death rate due to all causes for young women in the population. The most common causes of death due to anorexia are cardiac arrest, electrolyte imbalance, and suicide. After battling anorexia for many years, Karen Carpenter, a popular singer from the 1970s and 1980s, died at age 32. French actress and model Isabelle Caro, whose emaciated body appeared in an anti-anorexia ad died at age 28 in December 2010.52 Mary-Kate Olsen, Jane Fonda, and Sally Field have also reportedly suffered from eating disorders.
Questions to Consider
Why do the negative health effects associated with thinness and attempts to be thin receive relatively little attention when compared with obesity?
Investigate mortality rates for obese young women. How do these rates compare with those for young women suffering from anorexia or bulimia?
,2″Isabelle Caro Dies After Anorexia Struggle.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/dec/30/isabelle-caro-dies-model-anorexia, accessed January 1, 2011.
Misperception: Thinness is always healthier than heaviness. Reality: Excessive thinness and excessive weight are both unhealthy.
The widespread dislike for fatness, its clear visibility, its perceived association with many negative personal attributes, and the lack of widespread sanctions for discrimination on the basis of fat all contribute to continued discrimination. Research on stigma provides some clues to understanding fat discrimination. Stigma theory suggests that those whose attributes deviate from the typical, normal, or preferred attributes of others in a situation may be stigmatized and this stigmatization will result in various negative outcomes.J3 Since two-thirds of the U.S. population is now overweight or obese, the “typical” or “normal” person is no longer thin. Stigmatization appears instead to result from deviance from preferred attributes rather than common or normal attributes. As discussed earlier, women suffer more negative consequences for being overweight than do men. Several authors suggest this is partly a response to media images that portray nearly all women as unrealistically thin and ignore larger (normal) women, resulting in greater preferences for thin women/4 Even “plus-sized” models are often smaller than the “average” woman. Since the images of women’s thinness are so pervasive and so strongly equated with beauty, women who deviate from these images are penalized by society, including employers and health care providers.