If you do not need 30 CEUs, check out our ala carte page.  CEUs for $3 per credit.

Even if you procrastinate, we can help you out.  Materials are online.  Tests are online and instantly graded.  Print your certificate as soon as you pass the exam.

Our courses are accepted in most states for CEUs.  Click on approvals in the menu bar to see if our courses are accepted in your state.

The narrated version with CEUs will be added to the unlimited CEU membership package by the end of next week.

Pain Management

Don’t despair. There are a lot of very talented people who would love to be counselors, but do not have the time or desire to endure three years of graduate school and a two year internship.  Thankfully, many states have certifications for addictions counselors that do not require years of graduate school.  By getting a certification as a substance abuse counselor first, many people are able to “climb the ladder” at their agency, especially if they seek additional training in mental health counseling.  The Florida Certification Board for example has a certification for Mental Health Technicians as well as for Addictions Counselors.  Additionally, they have caveats for people who only have a bachelors that enable them to achieve the highest level of addictions certification, the CAP.

The majority of states will also allow people to get their training for addictions certification online.  Ensure that the online continuing education provider is accepted in your state though.  This usually means they are approved by NAADAC (like AllCEUs is) or are specifically approved by your state (California, Connecticut. and Georgia Certification Boards for example have their own approval process).

To get yourself started, you cal look on our approvals page to find links to the various agencies.  You can also Google: Addictions Counselor Certification Board and the name of your state.  For example: Addictions Counselor Certification Board Virginia will bring up Virginia’s Department of Health Professions who handles the addictions certification and licensing.  From there you can review the process for becoming a certified addictions counselor or mental health technician in your state.

Safety means ensuring physical and emotional safety not only in the treatment session, but also in veterans’ daily lives. Even Abraham Maslow believed that safety helped form the foundation of mental health and wellness. When people do not feel safe, they are on guard, and they cannot rest well which negatively impacts their health, mood and relationships which could be supportive. So the next question I am often asked, is “What do they need protection from?” They need places where they are not subject to judgement or evaluation, and are not concerned they will have to defend their actions or the actions of the military in general. If they have been deployed for a while, they need a community that can help them feel less like a stranger in a strange world. They need places where people understand what they are going through, who have survived the nightmares, the insomnia and the feeling of utter isolation, not knowing who they can trust. They need to learn the skills to deal with the flashbacks and the nightmares, and to relaxs at the end of the day.

Trustworthiness is developed in the process of creating safety by maintaining clear, appropriate, consistent boundaries and objectives. Many people—veterans included—will not tell you everything until they believe you are trustworthy. Those things that haunt them at 2am are not things they are going to tell just anybody. Throughout the process that led to the PTSD–whether it be one single incident or years of traumas—the person regularly was stripped of their control, second guessed for every move and, often questioned on their decisions. Trauma informed treatment not only relies on consumers learning to trust their therapists, but also on them learning to trust themselves. Failure to keep promises reinforces the notion that the world is an unpredictable, terrifying place. Failure to help consumers see the logic in what they did, or are doing, reinforces the notion that their behavior is unpredictable and they are out of control. Remember to ask yourself what the benefit is to any behavor. Our brains are programmed to survive. How is the behavior helping the person survive. Substance abuse numbs pain and helps people survive until they develop alternate skills. Fear reactions/fleeing protect the person from imminent danger. Explosive anger can neutralize a perceived threat.

 Choice means allowing consumers to prioritize what issues will be dealt with, when and to what extent. The caveat to this merges with collaboration. While it is certainly advised to maximize consumer input and control, there are some things which may need to be negotiated. When consumers are putting themselves at risk, even before treatment starts, the chances of them engaging in highly dangerous behaviors when they are in the midst of a crisis is much greater. For example, if Johnny is drinking a fifth of whisky each night and chasing it with hydrocodone, I would certainly not recommend delving into deep, emotionally charged issues in a traditional outpatient environment. It is likely when the pain increases, so will the desperation to stop the pain. Johnny first needs to get safe—mixing hydrocodone with whisky is just a slow way of committing suicide. If he can create a support plan that includes a drastic reduction in drinking (preferably 100%) and at least 3 people who will be there to support him, then I might consider working with him on the trauma issues in outpatient. My preference is for people with dual disorders (i.e. PTSD and substance abuse) who live alone or do not have a strong support system to enter into either intensive outpatient or a 3-5 day retreat in which they can have 24-hour access to a therapist and have their medication and substance intake monitored.

Finally, empowerment means providing consumers with the tools to help them create safety, trusting them to do the next right thing and encouraging them to make educated choices regarding their recovery and their life. Empowerment means helping them find positive ways to use the energy they are currently using to try and contain their anger and devastation. In PTSD, people often have a lot of “I should haves.” They cannot change the past, but with the knowledge of what they believe they should have done, what can they do now? That is to say, they cannot change the past, but what can they do to prevent it from happening in the future and/or make ammends if they believe they have done something wrong.

 Trauma informed care identifies the trauma, and all of the associated mental, emotional, physical and social changes as the primary cause of people’s mental health and substance abuse issues. Likely things will never be like they were before the trauma, but they can get better. The terapists job is to help people define what “better” looks like, provide needed skills to help the person achieve their goals and empower them to start doing the hard work necessary to recover.

Another stellar example of our egocentrism can be seen in how many agencies try to deal with people who are homeless.  Don’t get me wrong, especially in today’s economy and social climate, there are many, many people who are homeless who want help.  Nevertheless, there are also people who have made a choice to be homeless.  One of my colleagues worked in a mission in Washington D.C. for several years.  She pointed out that there were many people with whom she worked that had no desire to have a permanent roof over their heads.  Some had mental health issues such as schizophrenia or PTSD, but they were legally competent.  In some cases, the only way to be comfortable inside was to be on medication that had intolerable side effects.  They made the decision to forego the medication and remain homeless.  While this is not a choice I personally would be comfortable with, it is really not about me.   So, is it ethical to force someone who is homeless to stay in a shelter?  Is it ethical to place contingencies on them getting their medication (i.e. If you stay in the shelter, we will provide your medication)?  There is a culture in the homeless society.  Many of the patients I worked with in community mental health felt most comfortable downtown at the plaza with the people they knew understood them and watched out for them.

CARF and JCAHO want to see if your agency really gets the whole concept of multiculturalism.  That is, do you assist people in connecting in the communities and cultures of their choice, or are you trying to force them to behave in more mainstream ways?  Race, age, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, disability, gender, family values and educational pursuits are only a few areas in which there might be cultural differences.  A culture is a group of people who share similar values and experiences.   There is a culture surrounding addiction, eating disorders, mental health issues and even motherhood (why do you think mommy and me groups are so big?)  Culture impacts everything from how people perceive the world to which things they perceive as problems and which solutions they might find tolerable.

So how do you know when you are not attending to cultural differences?  Your patients may repeatedly tell you (verbally or nonverbally) that you do not understand.  Your patients tend to drop out of services within two to four weeks indicating there may have been a lack of rapport. Your patient base is very unidimensional (i.e. all white, middle class, working  females).  If you are in private practice, this might indicate that this is the population with whom you work best for a variety of reasons.  However, if you work in an agency with multiple clinicians and there is still only one narrowly defined population coming in, then it would be worth taking a look at.

Additionally,  assess your current patient base.  What could you do to make their experience more comfortable?  Kid sized chairs and children’s books for parents who bring their children?  A separate, quiet waiting area for patients who cannot take the noise?  Appointments outside of banker’s hours for people who work all day?  Reading material in both English and Spanish?  Waiting areas that are conducive to those in wheelchairs, with canes or seeing eye dogs? A mobile app or live help button on your website  that indicates the current wait time?

All of these things can assist you in getting prepared for CARF or JCAHO accreditation, and improve your patient’s experiences.

All of our courses are NBCC and NAADAC approved.

First: Auditory, visual and/or kinesthetic.  This is how people take in information.  To complicate things, not everyone learns everything the same way.  While I can be very in-tune and follow a person in a counseling session, if you try to tell me how to run a computer program or (Heaven forbid) drive somewhere—all bets are off.  I need to see it and do it.  Once I have driven somewhere once, I have no problem doing it again.  Thank you GPS.  In a classroom, this means providing a written outline, paper for note taking, using visual aids and having people discuss and apply the information to scenarios, or answer questions about the material.

Secondly: Active or reflective learners.  Some of us think while we talk, others think and then talk.  Active learners need to be engaged in the process, answering questions, filling in worksheets etc.  Reflective learners will take it all in, digest it, then tell you what they have learned.  It is helpful to take 3 or 5 minute breaks every 15 or 20 minutes to allow people to review the information, come up with any questions.

Third, there is a reason the military keeps meetings to under an hour.  People zone out.  There is a point of diminishing returns at which people just cannot handle anymore input—especially highly technical or complex material.  If you have to have longer trainings, make sure to have accommodations for those who just constitutionally cannot sit still for that long.  Have them help with the presentation.  Break into small group activities every 20 minutes or so.

Finally teach the knowledge, skills and abilities you want them to learn. Too often teaching  is reduced to a series of definitions (knowledge).  Leadership is….   Good teams… However, many people who have gotten to a leadership position can define these terms, it is operationalizing them that they need to learn (skills and abilities).  They know what morale is, but they need help figuring out how to improve it in their departments.  It is sort of like therapy.  Your patients would be very disappointed if they came into your office, and you told them what depression was, then dismissed them.  They came because they want to learn how to deal with it.

So in short, individualize training the way you already individualize treatment and you will find great success!