When it comes to addiction treatment, healing the mind is every bit as important as healing the body. Psychotherapy addresses the patient’s mental health needs while discouraging behaviors that lead to drug use. Whether as the main treatment or a supplement to other strategies, it’s a powerful tool for addressing addiction.
What Is Psychotherapy?
Psychotherapy is any therapy that involves working with a mental health care provider. It focuses on moods, behaviors, thoughts, and feelings. The goal is to teach patients the coping skills necessary to deal with challenging situations.
There are many types of psychotherapy. The most common forms include:
- Cognitive Behavioral Therapy — In this treatment, your therapist will help you detect harmful behaviors and beliefs. They will then teach you healthier beliefs and behaviors.
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy — This is a specialized form of cognitive behavioral therapy. It focuses on coping with stress and building better relationships with other people.
- Psychodynamic & Psychoanalysis Therapy — This therapy teaches you to be more aware of your unconscious behaviors and thoughts.
- Supportive Therapy — Supportive therapy trains you to deal with stressful or challenging situations in healthy ways.
- Interpersonal Therapy — This therapy helps you develop better interpersonal skills, laying a foundation for healthier interpersonal relationships.
Drug Addictions Treated By Psychotherapy
At San Antonio Recovery Center, we know that addiction is a disease. That's why we treat a variety of substance addictions through psychotherapy. Our drug treatment centers offer rehab programs that can help you. From withdrawal and detox on through to psychotherapy, San Antonio Recovery Center is with you every step of the way. No matter the substance, the intensity of your addiction, or how long you've been addicted, we can help you. Addictions treated by psychotherapy at San Antonio Recovery Center include:
How Can Psychotherapy Treat Addiction?
Psychotherapy can treat addiction by:
- Creating a Safe Space — In order to treat you effectively, addiction rehab programs must gather as much information as they can about your life. Through supportive therapy, your provider can help you feel safer and more comfortable. This makes it easier for you to share important information about yourself.
- Helping with Withdrawal — If you have an addiction to nicotine, cocaine, alcohol, meth, or other drugs with withdrawal symptoms, psychotherapy helps you manage those symptoms. Through cognitive behavioral therapy, you can identify situations that make you more likely to crave drugs. You then develop strategies to counter the urge to use them.
- Addressing Root Causes — When dealing with traumatic experiences, mental health issues, and relationship problems, many people turn to substances. Interpersonal, dialectical, and supportive therapies will teach you to cope with these problems without drugs.
- Motivating Positive Change — One of the greatest barriers to addiction therapy is the patient’s unwillingness to change. If you have trouble motivating yourself, your provider can use psychodynamic and psychoanalysis therapy to find out why. They can then come up with strategies to keep you motivated.
Does Addiction Therapy Have Any Downsides?
In general, therapy is one of the safest ways to cope with addiction. It can, however, be an uncomfortable process, especially if it forces you to think about traumatic or embarrassing memories. This can be physically and emotionally exhausting, and it may be hard to keep coming back to it. But if you persevere, it will be much easier to overcome your addiction.
San Antonio Recovery Center offers affordable addiction rehab programs for heroin, alcohol, and other substances. For more information on psychotherapy and other solutions, give us a call at 866.957.7885.
