Treating Heroin Abuse With Therapy
Intensive therapeutic intervention is a crucial component of every long-term program of addiction recovery. There are numerous benefits to therapy when it comes to the treatment of substance abuse – individual therapy, group therapy, and family therapy are frequently utilized simultaneously to provide clients with comprehensive clinical care.
The National Institute on Drug Abuse notes that behavioral approaches to addiction treatment serve a variety of vital purposes – they help clients modify their thought and behavioral patterns, they work to improve and bolster life skills, they teach important techniques geared towards relapse prevention and they ultimately help individuals remain abstinent. It is important to note that “therapy” does simply allude to sitting in a room with a licensed therapist and discussing your life history. Many different types of therapy are commonly utilized in a drug addiction treatment setting.
Therapy and Heroin Addiction
Some of the more common therapeutic methods include:
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT). This therapeutic method helps individuals identify and change maladaptive thought and behavior patterns. It has been discovered that CBT has a significant and positive impact on individuals who have been suffering at the hands of heroin abuse or dependence. Through CBT, they learn to eliminate drug-seeking behaviors and replace them with healthy behaviors.
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT). This therapeutic method is similar to CBT, but is somewhat more intense and is geared more specifically towards individuals who suffer from a dual diagnosis disorder – namely substance abuse and an underlying personality disorder. DBT works by reducing psychological cravings and helping individuals avoid situations that could lead to relapse.
- Motivational incentives. This method of therapy is also known as contingency management. Giving individuals certain incentives could help them maintain sobriety – incentives like making one 12 step meeting every day, showing up to all group therapy sessions on time, and staying completely abstinent. Potential rewards include a shorter stay in inpatient treatment, a day spent at the beach with sober friends, or something along those same lines.
- Community reinforcement approach. This approach involves group therapy – clients discuss recovery-related topics and offer one another peer support and encouragement. This therapeutic method facilitates feelings of belonging and reminds clients that they are never alone in their struggles and that they have ample support available.
- 12 step therapy. 12 step therapy educates clients on the 12 step method of addiction recovery, which essentially acts as ongoing community enforcement long after the inpatient treatment phase of recovery has come to a close.
- Family therapy. Addiction is a family disease – one that deeply devastates everyone it touches. For the client to effectively heal, the entire family unit must recover as a whole and work towards restoring a healthy way of functioning.
- Motivational interviewing (MI). This therapeutic method works towards helping clients overcome indifference and ambivalence when it comes to addiction recovery. Many individuals who struggle with heroin addiction enter into treatment against their own will. MI helps these clients understand that addiction treatment is an advantage that not everyone is awarded.
- Experiential therapies. Talk therapy can be difficult for some clients. Experiential therapy allows them to open up and express vulnerability in different ways, like through art, dance, or acting out past events (psychodrama).
Heroin Treatment and Therapeutic Intervention
Agape Treatment Centers utilizes numerous proven therapeutic methods in conjunction with effective holistic treatment and quality clinical care. We have licensed therapists and psychiatrists on staff who offer professional and comprehensive therapy, including individual therapy, group therapy sessions, and family therapy whenever necessary. For more information on our therapeutically-based program of heroin addiction recovery, please feel free to reach out to our Treatment Advisors at any time.
