Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Understanding Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is mental health counseling that helps people address problematic thoughts and feelings to overcome whatever challenges they face in their lives. Cognitive behavioral therapy is used widely today in addiction treatment and helps recovering addicts identify and work on the thoughts and actions that are impacting their lives and causing them to use drugs or alcohol.
While the CBT offered by New Life Medical Addiction Services is highly effective for patients who are recovering from substance abuse it is also used to also treat co-occurring disorders such as:
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)Anxiety
- Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD)
- Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD)
- Bipolar Disorder
- Eating Disorders
CBT is also referred to by a number of other names, including Cognitive Therapy, Rational Behavior Therapy, Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy, Rational Living Therapy, Schema-Focused Therapy, and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy.
Cognitive behavioral therapy is the most frequently used form of individual therapy in substance abuse counseling because it is a solution oriented and focuses on achieving and maintaining abstinence from drugs and alcohol. According to the National Association of Cognitive Behavioral Therapists, CBT approaches drug and alcohol addiction as learned behaviors that can be addressed by recognizing negative thought patterns. If negative thoughts can be recognized than they can be changed.
How Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Works
Cognitive behavioral therapy shows that many harmful actions and emotions are not logical or rational. These feelings and behaviors may come from past experiences, environmental or home factors.
The feelings someone has or the actions they take are often a result of their life experience, good or bad. For those who are recovering from addiction, cognitive behavioral therapy allows patients to better understand why they feel or act a certain way and how those feelings and actions can cause them to abuse alcohol and drugs. Only by understanding the root causes of addictive behavior can a patient truly get better.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy & Addiction Treatment
Automatic negative thoughts are often a root cause of depression and anxiety disorders, which are common co-occurring disorders with addiction. This means automatic thoughts can make someone more likely to abuse drugs and alcohol as well. What we find is that people are often misusing substances in an attempt to self-medicate when they really should be seeking help from medical and counseling professionals.
CBT from New Life Medical Addiction Services helps patients overcome drug addiction and alcoholism by exposing the negative thinking and triggers that cause them to use and replacing them with the tools they need to engage in a positive forward path.
The cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that New Life offers can be practiced at home or in our group and peer counseling sessions.
New Life Offers a Full Range of Other Counseling Services Including:
- Individualized counseling, which focus on the life problems and stresses which could have been the trigger for their substance abuse in the first place. It can also include goal setting, talking about setbacks, and celebrating the progress a patient has made in the path to recovery.
- Group counseling is also important to the New Life process. Group counseling gives our patients a chance to learn about the difficulties and challenges that others are having with their addictions and the ways they are dealing with those situations.
- Family counseling, which includes partners or spouses and other family members who are close to the patient and who are impacted by the person’s substance abuse issues. Family counseling can be a critical step in the healing process when bad or disruptive behavior has damaged family relationships.
- Peer coaching where staff members who have had their own problems with alcoholism and alcohol abuse can provide insight through their own experiences.
If you or someone you care about is dealing with substance abuse and you think that cognitive behavioral therapy might be part of the solution, then you need to contact the doctors and clinicians at New Life Medical Addiction Services today. Our caring and highly trained staff is available to talk 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call us at: 856-942-3700 or send us a Text Message
