Individual Therapy Program for Addiction

In an individual therapy session, those in recovery can expect to have one-on-one interaction with a counselor. They can expect to have in-depth conversations about their personal stories. Individual therapy sessions typically involve discussions about the recovering person’s emotions, feelings, and thoughts.

Some of the most common types of individual therapy for substance abuse are:

• Trauma-focused therapy
• Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT)
• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)

This type of individual therapy focuses on clients who have suffered from trauma. Traumatic experiences can lead to long-lasting effects, including reoccurring flashbacks, panic attacks, and dissociation. People can also experience sleep problems, such as nightmares or an inability to fall asleep. Trauma can also lead to self-esteem issues and increased anxiety.

Trauma-focused therapy can address the effects of trauma in a person’s life and introduce healthy coping techniques. If an individual suffers from addiction in addition to trauma, therapy can address both issues.

This type of therapy introduces mindfulness skills. This can help individuals to become more psychologically flexible. Mindfulness is a practice that encourages people to focus on the “here and now” rather than the past or the future.

Acceptance and commitment therapy works to help people identify how they try to deal with their emotional experiences. Those in addiction recovery may have harmful or unhelpful ways of managing, controlling, or addressing their emotions. (This can of course include drug or alcohol use as a method of suppressing emotional issues.)

ACT works to help people develop healthier ways of dealing with their emotions. By promoting psychological flexibility, ACT can help people work through emotional challenges. Acceptance and commitment therapy encourages people to accept their emotional experiences and process them. It also prompts individuals to show commitment by taking action. This could mean engaging in behaviors that promote recovery and healing.

Cognitive behavioral therapy reveals harmful cognitive processes and helps people replace them with positive processes. In other words, CBT identifies harmful thoughts and replaces them with healthy thoughts.

CBT helps people develop coping skills and identify triggers and challenges that could hinder them from remaining on track. Cognitive behavioral therapy can be effective for people who suffer from addiction and co-occurring mental health disorders.

Dialectical behavior therapy is a type of cognitive behavioral therapy. DBT helps people learn how to regulate their emotions. It also instructs individuals on how to eliminate self-destructive behaviors and equips recovering addicts with relapse-prevention skills.

DBT focuses on improving 4 particular skill sets. These include distress tolerance, emotion regulation, mindfulness, and interpersonal effectiveness.

You can rest assured that individual therapy is a confidential approach to recovery. What you discuss with your therapist can remain between the two of you. If anything needs to be discussed with others, you will be aware.

Individual therapy for addiction provides a setting in which people can focus on themselves. So, in an individual therapy session, you can simply concentrate on your own needs. Through one-on-one discussions with a therapist, an individual can develop a deeper understanding of himself or herself. Individual counseling can uncover the causes of addiction in your life and reveal deep-rooted issues.

Once these issues have been exposed, you can work more effectively to overcome them. As individual therapy explores the life of the person in recovery, it also works to equip the individual with skills for relapse prevention. By learning more about yourself, you can also determine the best way to address triggers, challenges, and obstacles throughout recovery.

While group therapy can be effective, it can be difficult to talk about your challenges and struggles with a group of people. Fear of being judged can prevent people from speaking freely in group therapy settings. But individual counseling provides a safe space where people can talk about their experiences without judgment from anyone.

It can be difficult to deal with emotions while in recovery from substance abuse. An individual therapy program for addiction can assist people in regulating their emotions. Counseling that takes place in a one-on-one setting enables people to focus on their own emotional needs.

Individual therapy for addiction can help people to discover their triggers. This may be more challenging to do in a group therapy setting. But, individual therapy allows people to dive more deeply into their own lives and explore the truth about their struggle with addiction.

Knowing what your triggers are can be one of the most effective ways to avoid relapsing. By understanding what triggers the desire to drink alcohol or use drugs, you can develop a plan to work through such challenges when they arise.

Triggers can come in various forms, including stress, anxiety, or depression. Loneliness or boredom can trigger substance abuse, too. Also, certain settings or groups of people can trigger harmful thoughts and, eventually, lead to relapse. For example, parties, where people are drinking, can lead you to fall back into substance use. Or, being around people who use drugs can cause you to relapse.

Identifying your triggers can make an incredibly huge difference in your recovery journey. Fortunately, individual therapy can help with this.

Many times, people who suffer from substance abuse struggle to feel emotionally safe around others. Sometimes, this is due to a lack of emotional stability in the past. Perhaps childhood trauma or relationship abuse contributed to the development of addiction in their lives. Or, maybe they struggled to trust people when they were actively using drugs or alcohol. Regardless of the cause, emotional security is often hard to come by for those who suffer from addiction.

Individual therapy helps to reestablish this necessary sense of security. While learning more about yourself, you can also receive support and guidance from your therapist. You can develop a sense of trust for yourself and your counselor. This safe emotional relationship can help bring the healing you need and prepare you to build friendships and family relationships throughout your recovery.