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Who should be counselors in methadone maintenance programs: Ex-addicts or nonaddicts?

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Abstract

Counselors play a central role in most methadone maintenance programs. Yet the choice of who should be employed as counselors is based on little more than personal whims of decision makers. And in evaluating the effectiveness of this highly controlled rehabilitative therapy, the influence of the counselors as an important factor is often ignored. The total changeover of the counselors from an exaddict to a nonaddict group in an otherwise stable clink provided an unusual opportunity to compare the performance of the two groups. Both the objective and subjective data supported the hypothesis that exaddicts as a group compare unfavorably with a similar group of nonaddicts when employed as counselors in a methadone maintenance clinic.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, 3811 O'Hara St., 15261, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

    Iradj Siassi M.D. (Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director, Comprehensive Drug Abuse Treatment Program)

  2. Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic, USA

    Burleigh P. Angle M.A. (Assistant Director of Research with the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Treatment Program) &  Dominick C. Alston B.A. (Research Assistant with the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Treatment Program)

Authors
  1. Iradj Siassi M.D.
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  2. Burleigh P. Angle M.A.
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  3. Dominick C. Alston B.A.
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Additional information

This study was funded in part by the Drug Abuse Services Project Grant #5H80DA0135602, under the National Institute on Drug Abuse.

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Siassi, I., Angle, B.P. & Alston, D.C. Who should be counselors in methadone maintenance programs: Ex-addicts or nonaddicts?. Community Ment Health J 13, 125–132 (1977). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01410881

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01410881

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