Summary: | This Treatment Improvement Protocol (TIP) is a companion to TIP 51, Substance Abuse Treatment: Addressing the Specific Needs of Women. These two volumes look at how gender-specific treatment strategies can improve outcomes for men and women, respectively. The physical, psychological, social, and spiritual effects of substance use and abuse on men can be quite different from the effects on women, and those differences have implications for treatment in behavioral health settings. Men are also affected by social and cultural forces in different ways than women, and physical differences between the genders influence substance use and recovery as well. This TIP, Addressing the Specific Behavioral Health Needs of Men, addresses these distinctions. It provides practical information based on available evidence and clinical experience that can help counselors more effectively treat men with substance use disorders. Historically, standard behavioral health services for substance abuse have been designed with male clients in mind. As the number of women presenting for substance abuse services increased, clinicians began to understand that women had different treatment needs than men, related to differences in their patterns of substance use and their perceptions of both the problem of substance abuse and its treatment. Researchers began to investigate how standard substance abuse treatment in a variety of behavioral health settings can be altered to improve outcomes for women. In the process, they have gained insight into how men's and women's responses to substance abuse and substance abuse treatment differ. These insights can also improve treatment for men. New research in the areas of gender studies and men's studies can help providers understand why men abuse substances and how to address masculine values in treatment
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