 Unique Histories and Unified Futures: Future Trends for Human Service Graduates Entering Psychotherapy Fields

Undergraduate Human Services (HMSV) students are often interested in graduate education and might consider a career as a psychotherapist. The psychotherapy disciplines are primarily composed of psychology, social work, counseling, and addiction counseling, each of which have a unique history regarding their development and approach to clinical work. HMSV graduates aspiring to psychotherapy training need an understanding of the trends influencing the fields of psychotherapy across disciplines. This article presents an overview of trends and factors to prepare the next generation of psychotherapists to work as a unified collective to address societal and individual challenges.

Book Review of “Addiction Counseling Today: Substance and Addictive Behaviors”

The issue of addictions and treatment has been increasingly prioritized by policy-makers in recent years, yet the meaning of the concept remains ambiguous. Throughout the 22 chapters of his book Addiction Counseling Today, Kevin G. Alderson weaves together the most salient theories, research, and therapies from the field of addiction and from contemporary developments in policy and practice. The book examines what the tenets of recovery and treatment mean in terms of not only the professional involved in providing treatment but also what recovery looks like for each client. Chapters cover the influence of ethics in treatment, theories of addiction, the neurosciences, and the recognition of behavioural addictions, including the controversies attached to the use of particular labels. A notable strength involves the author’s inclusion of the lived experiences of those who have dealt with various addictions. This book will be essential reading for practitioners, researchers, policy-makers, and students in the fields of addiction, social care, psychology, and criminal justice.

Recent advances in alcoholic hepatitis

Alcoholic hepatitis is the severest clinical presentation of alcoholic liver disease. Lacking an effective pharmacologic treatment, alcoholic hepatitis is associated with a poor prognosis and its recovery relies mostly on abstinence. With alcohol use disorder being universally on the rise, the impact of alcoholic hepatitis on society and health-care costs is expected to increase significantly. Prognostic factors and liver biopsy can help with timely diagnosis, to determine eligibility and response to corticosteroids, and for prognostication and transplant referral. Although recent discoveries in the pathophysiology of alcoholic hepatitis are encouraging and could pave the way for novel treatment modalities, a multidisciplinary approach considering timely identification and treatment of liver-related complications, infectious and metabolic disease, malnutrition, and addiction counseling should be emphasized. Apart from proper selection of candidates, transplant programs should provide adequate post-transplant addiction support in order to make of early liver transplantation for alcoholic hepatitis the ultimate sobering experience in the next decade.