Language as a Counseling Tool
© 2000 Robert J. Chapman, PhD
As we in the counseling profession ply our skill and experience in the helping professions, one of the most frequent tools we implore to sculpt results with our clients is conversation. Regardless of which language we employ, the particular words chosen will often convey meaning according to the joint perceptions of the counselor and the client. Consequently, we educate clients about what we think and believe with the words we use in our interactions with the. With this as an opening statement, many who read this missive are probably thinking, "Yes, of course. What's the point?" My point is, we may inadvertently be countering the intended message we wish to convey to our clients by the very language we employ in communication. Not unlike the adolescent in the Partnership-For-A-Drug-Free-America public service announcement who, when confronted by the irate father holding a cigar box full of drug parapehalia and challenging the kid to tell him, "Who taught you to do this?", answers after the third challenge, "You did, alright!", we may be saying more than we realize, in our choice of language as well as our overt actions.
As we deal with clients who have alcohol and other drug related problems we need to pay particular attention to the messages we deliver as we focus on these issues. For example, yesterday I was looking for the 800 number for an airline in the Yellow Pages of my local directory. It just so happened that on the page facing the site of the airline number I was seeking were listings for "alcohol and drug" treatment facilities and counselors. Do you notice anything odd in this heading? I did. As a Counselor Educator who works exclusively with college students, I frequently find myself countering student excuses for intoxicated behavior such as, "Oh, its only beer. It's not like I'm doin' drugs or anything!" Now, on a cognitive level, I realize I do not have to tell any reader of Counseling Today that alcohol is a drug. But when we refer to alcohol AND drugs in our ads or speech, in essence we are fostering that student exhortation -- they are different. We do this all the time.
If you work in secondary education, and to a lesser extent in higher ed, look at your student handbook and chances are good that there are policies on "alcohol and drugs." We advertise our professional services this way. We discuss and treat substance abuse and substance dependency as though there is somehow a fundimental difference between alcohol and other psychoactive substances. At the most, we treat alcohol as if it is "like" a drug. Now this is not a problem that we in the counseling profession must exclusively claim. Those PSA's like the one cited above are funded, to a large extent, with money donated by the alcohol and tobacco industries. This is not to discredit the message of the PSA, but it does cause one to pause and question if there might not be dual objectives at work in the production of "anti-drug" messages. If alcohol and drugs are are successfully depicted as being different then we can continue to focus our anger and our angst on "drugs."
What is particularly interesting when considering this issue is that the kids know what's what. Like so many issues which plague the cultures of the United States, it is the kids and adolescents who know eactly where the proverbial bear deficated in the buckwheat! It is us, the adults, the educated and politically active, those engendered with the ability to make things happen, who seem to strive to split these philosophical hairs. This editorial is not intended to be a neo-prohibitionist's call to arms. Quite the contrary. I realize that better than 80% of those who drink, do so with a minimum of difficulty. If anything, I would advocate that we revisit the Controlled Substances Act and reconsider the appropriateness of criminalizing the posession and use of "small" quantities of controlled substances.
To read other essays by Dr. Chapman, click HERE