TPC-Journal-V2-Issue1

60 The Professional Counselor \Volume 2, Issue 1 The mixed messages coupled with the burdensome task of meeting the mandates for two professional bodies (professional counseling and addiction) may drive some new counselors from the addiction field. For example, at the end of a panel discussion on this topic at the 2011 American Counseling Association Conference (Morgen et al., 2011), a new graduate of a professional counseling master’s program said she would like to start accruing practice hours in a substance use disorders clinic as she had completed some internship hours there and took a course on substance use disorders. However, the facility where she wanted to work required her to obtain an addiction license in addition to her professional counseling license. She subsequently indicated that she did not have the time, money, or the energy to do both and was thus looking outside the substance use disorders field for employment. This anecdote clearly demonstrates how newly graduated counseling professionals (especially those working in the provisional licensure period) may be inhibited from entering the addiction counseling field. How many qualified, talented and motivated students are we turning away from the addiction counseling field due to these extra training requirements unique to working with the specific DSM-IV-TR Axis I Substance Use Disorder diagnosis at a time when there is an ever-growing need for services (e.g., addiction in returning veterans or the chronically unemployed)? Effective training of LPCs who work with addiction requires coordination between educational training institutions and actual practice that reflects reasonable experienced-based requirements for working in the area of addiction as well as respect for the graduate-level degree (e.g., master’s or doctorate) and training the counselor has already received. Such coordination varies from state to state and without a guarantee of such coordination the danger is that well-intentioned, well-trained counselors will enter the field technically qualified to counsel individuals, but philosophically lacking the integration of theory and practice necessary for treating addiction. This could mean, for example, that the counselor is more vulnerable to enabling the active addictive process and thereby not providing counseling in the best interest of the client. In an effort to initiate the dialogue on how to perhaps recalibrate the system, it first seems warranted to review the professional and addiction counseling licensure laws and policies within two states. The authors intend to (over the next few years) review the state laws and policies for all 50 states. However, for the purposes of this initial paper, New Jersey and North Carolina will be discussed below. Specific State Issues New Jersey New Jersey operates a professional counseling license (LPC) with a minimum education of a graduate counseling degree, a certified alcohol and drug abuse counselor credential (CADC) requiring a minimum education of bachelor’s degree, associate degree, high school diploma or GED, and a licensed clinical and alcohol and drug abuse counselor (LCADC) with a minimum education of a graduate counseling degree and qualification for the CADC. The LPC is governed by the Professional Counselor Examiners Committee (imbedded within the Marriage and Family Therapy Board), whereas the CADC/LCADC is governed by the Alcohol and Drug Counselor Committee. According to the regulations for professional counseling, New Jersey defines counseling in part as “using currently accepted diagnostic classifications including, but not limited to the DSM-IV” (NJ Board of Marriage and Family Therapy Examiners, 2009, 13:34-10.2, p. 34-22). Substance use disorders fall within Axis I of the DSM-IV-TR, thus work with substance use disorders seems in line with the professional regulations of the LPC. Further evidence of this fact exists within the LCADC regulations (NJ Alcohol and Drug Counselor Committee, 13:34C-2.6, p. 34C-10) that states the following individuals are exempt from the LCADC licensure requirement: A person doing work of an alcohol or drug counseling nature, or advertising those services, when acting within the scope of the person’s profession or occupation and doing work consistent with the person’s training, including physicians, clinical social workers, professional counselors, marriage and family therapists, psychologists, nurses or any other profession or occupation licensed by the State, or students within accredited programs of these professions, if the person does not hold oneself out to the public as possessing a license or certification issued pursuant to the Act or this chapter.