Addiction counseling is a profession with a low level of cohesion due to very significant state-to-state differences in certification and licensure requirements, the variety of levels of qualifications among practicing counselors, and the emergence of new demands--in terms of knowledge and coverage--for addiction counselors at a time when fiscal support and insurance reimbursements for drug intervention programs are shrinking and demand is increasing. As the profession struggles to organize itself by adding to its arsenal of competencies, however, the National Curriculum Committee (NCC) of the Addiction Technology Transfer Center (ATTC) seeks to define the broadest range of knowledge, skills, and attitudes for all addiction professionals while also producing a defining list of attributes that all addiction counselors share. As the field expands and contracts on various fronts new opportunities arise as counselors add to the knowledge and skills they use in practice. But the basic attitudes and other personal characteristics of counselors remain constant and this allows for the creation of a profile of the addiction counselor in terms of attributes that facilitate the connection with clients, negotiate the difficult problems of empathy and distance, and are productive of the kind of sustained attention and efficiency of execution without which no addiction counselor can serve her/his clients adequately. The addiction counselor must, in short, become a combination of an efficient bureaucrat, an empathetic supporter, a model of constancy and consistency, and the possessor of a variety of knowledge and skills that will facilitate clients' recovery.
Addiction counseling is a field struggling to define itself. Although thousands of specialists identify themselves by this term and they are employed in numerous public and private capacities throughout the United States there is little agreement over what makes an addiction counselor. ...