TIP 48: Managing Depressive Symptoms
Attention substance abuse treatment counselors—a new resource is now available from SAMHSA to help you work with clients who are experiencing depressive symptoms.
Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) 48, Managing Depressive Symptoms in Substance Abuse Clients During Early Recovery, provides the “what,” “why,” and “how-to” of working with clients with depressive symptoms and substance use disorders. Depressive symptoms can interfere with your clients’ recovery and ability to participate in treatment.
Topics covered include counseling approaches, clinical settings, cultural concerns, counselor roles and responsibilities, screening and assessment, treatment planning and processes, and continuing care.
Organized in three parts, the TIP provides vignettes of counseling sessions, descriptions of specific techniques, and an online-only literature review. The online version of TIP 48 and the literature review will be available soon—check SAMHSA’s Knowledge Application Program (KAP) Web site for updates.
Administrators also will find information about incorporating the management of depressive symptoms into substance abuse programs, complete with a systematic approach to designing and operating a supportive infrastructure.
To order print copies of TIP 48, call SAMHSA’s Health Information Network at 1-877-SAMHSA-7.
TIP 48 offers a snapshot of the most common depressive symptoms:
- Jumping to conclusions. People with depressive symptoms tend to jump to negative conclusions easily.
- Emotional reasoning. These patients may assume their emotions give them an accurate view of the world and do not “test” further.
- Discounting the positive. They may focus on what they don’t have, rather than what they do, leaving them feeling deprived or disappointed.
- Disbelieving others. People with depression often believe that others are being nice only because they want something—that they are manipulative.
- Black-and-white thinking. Depression makes it harder to think about life in complex ways—everything is “either/or.”
Beginning with TIP 48, SAMHSA’s Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) is introducing a new approach to TIPs. Short and concise, the new TIPs focus on how to perform relevant activities and target specific needs of substance abuse treatment counselors, program administrators, and clinical supervisors.
This allows for the materials in the TIP to be reviewed, discussed, and used as a training tool over a short period of time and with few or no additional resources. The goal is to improve the delivery of substance abuse treatment services.
For more information about Treatment Improvement Protocols (TIPs), visit SAMHSA’s KAP Web site. TIPs are listed by topic and by number.
Treatment providers may find other Treatment Improvement Protocols helpful. They include:
See the full list of available TIPs from SAMHSA’s Knowledge Application Program.
Other available products include KAP Keys. Based on specific TIPs, these are handy, durable tools. Keys may include assessment or screening instruments, checklists, and summaries of treatment phases.
They are fastened with a key ring and can be kept within reach and consulted frequently. KAP Keys enable you to locate information easily and to use this information to enhance treatment services.
From the SAMHSA News Archives: Read a description of these useful “quick access tools” -- KAP keys and quick guides.