A Million Little Lessons: The Evaluation and Use of Mass Media in Counselor Addiction Education

Abstract

Mental health counselors, school counselors, and rehabilitation counselors, much like other professional counselors, encounter clients whose lives are somehow affected by substance use and addictions. Although counselors regularly encounter substance-dependent clients, spouses, children, and/or employers affected by substance abuse, training in substance abuse and related issues is often not included in counselor training programs. This paper offers caution and considerations to be addressed when developing the objectives and techniques of a pedagogy that uses films, biographies, memoirs, and other forms of contemporary mass media as an adjunct in addiction training in counselor education.