Addiction Assessment

Upon entering a treatment facility or starting therapy for addiction rehab, patients undergo an assessment of their lives, including their past addictive patterns, their upbringing, family, relationships and other areas that are related to their psychological make-up. This is called an addiction assessment. Many areas of a client’s life that seem unrelated to their addiction are often key parts of understanding and treating their problem.  

It’s also important to look at Risk Factors. Issues that may make a patient inappropriate for a certain treatment settings due to risk of self harm or harm to those around them. This may make treatment at a psychiatric facility a better choice with the aim of either first stabilising the addicted person for admission to a rehab or receiving care for their needs in the psychiatric clinic.  An addiction assessment will be the beginning of a treatment plan that will be negotiated and agreed upon between the addicted patient and the focal addictions counsellor / clinical team.

The addictions counsellor will be looking at factors that may have the potential to threaten or derail the patient’s recovery from addiction. In quality addictions treatment centres the counsellor forms part of a multidisciplinary addictions team.