Human Development:
Perspectives on Addiction and Recovery

A 12-hour course that provides practical strategies based on theories of human development for working with clients recovering from alcoholism and drug addiction. An understanding of these theories will help therapists and addictions counselors recognize stages of recovery and better select appropriate interventions for every phase of treatment of addicted clients.

Some of the topics related to human development and addiction covered in this course include developmental deficits and developmental arrest in recovering clients, delayed reactions to sexual abuse and other childhood trauma, stages in recovery from alcoholism or drug addiction, developmental issues in the professional’s own life, and multi-problem families with a multigenerational history of substance abuse. Applying these developmental strategies to work with addicted individuals will significantly improve communication and rapport between helping professionals and recovering addicts and lead to more success in alcohol and drug addiction therapy.

Goals/Objectives

At the completion of this course you will be able to:

  1. Examine how a developmental perspective is particularly appropriate to the treatment of alcohol and substance abusers

  2. Identify the patterns involved in the development of addiction related problems;

  3. Review information on how disruptions in clients’ childhood or adolescent development, stemming from their own or a parent’s drug abuse can influence their present recovery process

  4. Describe the developmental course of addiction;

  5. Identify tools designed to interrupt addictive patterns;

  6. Recognize stages in the developmental process of recovery;

  7. Learn to select appropriate interventions.

     

Your Course Instructor:
Jacqueline Wallen

PhD, MSW, LCSW-C

 

Dr. Jacqueline Wallen is a licensed clinical social worker who has been in private practice in Takoma Park, Maryland for more than twenty years.  Her treatment approaches are based on a holistic and developmental perspective that emphasizes the power of natural healing processes within the individual and the curative power of authentic relationships.

Dr. Wallen is an Associate Professor in the Family Science Department at the University of Maryland.  She is the author of 25 articles and book chapters, with publications in such journals as Journal of Studies on Alcohol, Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, Archives of General Psychiatry, Community and Hospital Psychiatry, and Medical Care. Her most current work is entitled Balancing Work and Family: The Role of the Workplace (2003).