SW 710 Mental Health and Substance Abuse
The course covers the relationship between mental health and mental illness, risk and resilience, bio-psycho-social-spiritual assessment, a strengths-based assessment process, a critical use of DSM-5, and major types of mental illness and their evidence-supported treatments. Students will understand alcohol and drug abuse from biological, sociological, psychological, and cultural perspectives, and examine the causes and consequences of alcohol-drug abuse, diagnostic issues, intervention, treatment, aftercare, and prevention, as well as their own personal values and attitudes toward alcohol/drug use. The impact of alcohol/drug abuse on families, special groups (e.g., women, elderly, minority populations), and the larger societal context will be addressed. Students will also be introduced to psychotropic medications, their therapeutic uses, side effects, and potential risk.