Addiction specialists can be either medically trained physicians or lay counselors with a variety of backgrounds and experience. When looking for help with any addiction, before you make a choice, you will want to know what qualifications a health professional has to be providing addiction advice.
When medical doctors are addiction specialists, it is usually to deal with alcohol and drug addictions. Medical professionals can seek additional professional qualifications if intending to specialize in addictive behaviors. Psychiatrists, hospital registrars, and in the USA osteopaths will seek certification such as CAS – Certified Addiction Specialist to inform the public and other health professionals of their status, and expertise as addiction specialists.
Providing medication for people with addictions is restricted to doctors, and is a highly specialized field. Doctors can obtain addiction specialists qualifications which permit them to medicate opiate addicted patients, specifically using methadone, buprenophine or suboxone, and allow the doctor to access restricted therapeutic drugs.
Some doctors and many lay people run clinics to treat addictions. Not everyone wants to go to a medical clinic for help with their addiction, even though they are well regulated. Medical addiction specialists tend to view all addiction as basically a disease, or physical disorder, their preference being to medicate and provide counseling intended to help modify behavior.
Anyone who is licensed to practice therapy or counseling can hold consultations, or give advice to people with addictions. Counselors can, by repute and practice, become known as addiction specialists, and they can advertize and promote themselves as addiction specialists.
If a health professional does have the expertise, they will generally get themselves accredited, so as to be able to display their qualifications. It is the easiest and best way to demonstrate your expertise. In the medical and allied health field the American Academy provides CAS certification in 5 different catagories of addiction
The public should be wary, when looking for addiction specialists. Be cautious if a practitioner does not have any well recognized qualifications, and or is not a member of the relevant association for his skills, and does not have either long experience in or supervision of his practice. The standard and quality of people who don’t have formal certification cannot be assessed except in terms of performance and reputation and both can be misleading.
Are people with addictive problems best served by having their condition pathologized, as a “disease”, with the addict treated as a patient in surroundings most clinical?
There are many alternative schools of thought as to what the roots of addictions might be, and many alternative therapies. When seeking holistic and alternative addiction specialists, the same principles apply and those who profess to be addiction specialists still need to be able to demonstrate experience and relevant qualifications, recognized in their field.
Holistic addiction specialists generally recognize a need in the addict to have peace and quiet in natural and harmonic surroundings, and will often offer retreats and community style living to help addicts to beat their addictions. Consistently with holistic principals the primary focus is upon healing, with good food and natural therapies, including drug-free counseling, to assist the recovering addict.
When choosing between addiction specialists, you are choosing your pathway to a better future – choosing holistic addiction specialists prepares you well for a future based on the principles of healthy living.
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