Is the counselor an “active ingredient” in substance abuse rehabilitation?
The impact of the counselor in substance abuse rehabilitation has been questioned. The unexpected resignations of two counselors provided a natural opportunity to examine the effects of counselor assignment in a methadone maintenance treatment program with the effects of the medication philosophy, program rules, and supplementary services held constant. Sixty-one patients who had been assigned to these two counselors were assigned to four other counselors in a virtually random manner. It was reasoned that if the new counselor had relatively little impact, then there would be little difference in performance from pre to posttransfer or among the four caseloads during the 6-month period following the transfer. Performance measures included urinalysis results, methadone dosage, prescriptions for psychotropic medications, employment, and arrest rates. Results indicated statistically significant and clinically meaningful differences in the posttransfer performance of the four caseloads. One
