Blind Spots: Addressing Implicit Bias in The Clinical Relationship

Includes a Live Web Event on 08/12/2025 at 10:00 AM (CDT)

Implicit bias isn’t always visible—but it always matters.

Join nationally renowned behavioral health expert Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC, for an eye-opening and action-oriented training focused on identifying, understanding, and addressing implicit bias in clinical settings—especially when working with clients navigating process addictions and substance use disorders.

Through powerful insights and research-backed strategies, participants will learn how unconscious beliefs and attitudes can quietly influence clinical decision-making—impacting everything from body language and client advocacy to treatment length and outcomes. This training will go beyond awareness, offering concrete tools to turn implicit bias into explicit, mindful practice and strengthen the clinical alliance across cultures and identities.

Mark brings decades of real-world experience and an unmatched ability to guide professionals toward more inclusive, strengths-based, and culturally responsive care.

What You’ll Learn:
  • The differences between conscious and unconscious bias—and how both affect your work
  • How implicit bias develops and where it shows up in the therapeutic space
  • Research-backed methods to reduce bias and improve client engagement
  • Tools to transform bias into intentional action
  • Strategies to build trust and connection across cultures
  • A strength-based counseling approach that empowers clients and providers alike 

CE Accreditation is pending approval.

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This training is sponsored in whole or in part by the Illinois Department of Human Services Division of Behavioral Health and Recovery.

Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC

Mark Sanders, LCSW, CADC is an international speaker and consultant in behavioral health whose presentations have reached thousands throughout the United States, Europe, Canada, West Indies and Guam. He is the recipient of four lifetime achievement awards including the prestigious NAADAC Enlightenment Award. He was one of three finalists for the National Association for Addiction Professionals 50th Anniversary Legends Award. Mark is also the recipient of the Illinois Certification Board's Professional of the Year Award, The Illinois Certification Board, Jessica Hayes Lifetime Achievement Award and The Barbara Bacon Award for outstanding contributions to the social work profession as a Loyola University of Chicago alumni.

Mark is the author of five books on behavioral health recovery. Recent writings include: Slipping Through the Cracks: Intervention Strategies For Clients With Multiple Addictions Disorders and Relationship Detox: A Counselors Guide To Helping Clients Develop Healthy Relationships In Recovery. He was lead writer on a trauma informed gun violence prevention curriculum which is being implemented in several large cities in the United States. His groundbreaking monograph Recovery Management co-authored with historians William White and Earnest Kurtz helped shift addictions treatment and recovery from the acute care model solely towards a Recovery Oriented System of Care. Mark has had two stories published in the New York Times bestselling book series, Chicken Soup for The Soul.

Mark has also had a 30 year career as a university educator having taught at The University of Chicago, Loyola University of Chicago and Illinois State University School's of Social Work. He is co-founder of Serenity Academy Chicago, a program which sponsors recovery-oriented peer groups in local high schools.

Components visible upon registration.