Providing Mental Health Counseling Services at Harm Reduction Programs: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This paper examines the need for mental health counseling services at harm reduction programs and seeks to answer the question of why mental health services may be beneficial to harm reduction programs and how best to implement and enact these services. It covers the rationale for providing these services, such as the lack of integrated substance use and mental health services and harm reduction programs' ability to engage hard-to-reach populations. The paper also summarizes the available research on existing counseling services at harm reduction sites and the broader field of harm reduction psychotherapy. From this literature, best practices for program design and therapeutic process for mental health counseling at these locations are identified.