psychology Drug Addiction Treatment Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Medical professionals have made incredible advances in drug addiction treatment over the last few decades. With recent advances in neuroscience, psychology, and pharmacology, rehab specialists have developed a variety of proven methods for drug addiction treatment. Thousands of addicts all over the country now make lasting recoveries each year.

Evidence-based therapies are the most important treatments at rehab facilities. These therapies have been rigorously tested and mandated by government and private agencies alike. However, many rehab centers use other treatment methods to bridge the gap between clinical therapy and real-world living. One of the most effective ways of accomplishing this goal is cognitive-behavioral therapy.

Cognitive-behavioral therapy teaches addicts that they can control their emotions with their thoughts. This is crucial during drug addiction treatment, as many substances abusers have control issues which contribute to the development and continuation of their addictions. Negative emotions often lead to relapse in recovering addicts, and gaining control of these emotions is often critical for managing drug cravings.

Cognitive behavioral therapy involves two distinct phases. During the first phase, addicts make personal discoveries about the mental states, emotional problems, and behavior patterns which led them to use drugs in the first place. They also learn why they abused these drugs, and how they eventually developed their addictions. This knowledge is crucial for developing personalized sobriety strategies which work with patients specific life circumstances.

For instance, cocaine addicts may discover that they typically use cocaine with friends and acquaintances to relieve their subconscious social anxiety. Likewise, alcoholics may find that they drink in response to specific stressors at home or in the workplace. Making these kinds of direct connections between emotions and drug use is essential to the success of cognitive-behavioral therapy.

The second phase involves the development of strategies for avoiding addiction triggers and managing drug cravings when they occur. These strategies require that addicts use reason to overcome negative emotions.

For example, the aforementioned cocaine addicts might learn to logically relieve their anxieties by reminding themselves they are in friendly company, and that they dont need to get high to be social. Alcoholics with stress-related addictions might learn relaxation techniques which allow them to calm themselves and respond rationally to tough situations. Effective use of these strategies may require the simultaneous treatment of co-occurring mental imbalances - a task often accomplished during individual counseling sessions with addiction specialists.

Overall, cognitive behavioral therapy is an effective method for helping addicts apply what they learn during evidence-based therapies to difficult situations in their everyday lives. This type of therapy requires dedicated effort from patients and clinicians alike, however. Inpatient, outpatient, and partial hospitalization drug addiction treatment plans offer addicts access the chance to work with rehab specialists who will help them develop these strategies for lasting sobriety.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, click the links below to find a treatment center near you. No matter how much youre suffering, a drug addiction treatment program can help you put your life back together.

What’s the story on cognitive behavioral therapy?

Cognitive behavioral therapy is the best

Drug Addiction Treatment - Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy

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Psychology Degrees Overseas Offer Career Advantages

Getting a degree in psychology overseas gives students invaluable international experience and has a positive impact on their future career opportunities. 

Graduates with psychology degrees are increasingly in demand. As the world becomes more interconnected, the study of human behavior is becoming more practical and valuable for its diverse applications in almost every stratum of society. Employers are naturally drawn to graduates with a proven background beyond conventional programs. Studying in a foreign country builds strong skills in problem solving, increases confidence and gives students broader critical thinking skills. 

Psychology requires innovative thinking in an evolving world of people and cultures with changing needs. Students who immerse themselves in other realms and perspectives by studying abroad build for a broader foundation of human understanding themselves and their future employers. 

Depending upon areas of specialization, students with psychology degrees can choose to work in a myriad of professional settings. By studying abroad aspiring psychologists are exposed to more types of settings, organizations, groups and connections than those who only study at domestic universities. 

International Study Expands Workplace Possibilities 

A graduate with a psychology degree typically expects to work in certain types of workplace settings, but international exposure at the undergraduate or graduate level helps students discover more creative possibilities for types of work environments and applications in their career. 

Depending on the psychology degree, a psychologist can work anywhere from a private practice to a consulting firm to a government department. The experience of having studied abroad can inspire graduates to seek out work settings that fit their individual style since they have seen different work settings in different parts of the world. Learning how a private practice looks in the outback of New Zealand can change how a graduate decides to set up a practice in the United States., for instance. 

Because of the inherently multifaceted nature of psychology, psychologists work in almost any arena of society-corporations, education, government, health and welfare services, community agencies, police forces, counseling services, defense forces, non profit organizations, research institutions and training services. Yet, a graduate with a degree in psychology who has had international exposure is more likely to be in a position to take advantage of a wide range of offers. 

International Study of Psychology Can be More Specialized 

For students who focused on a psychology degree early in their academic life, a study abroad degree can be more efficient and specialized. The study of psychology in Australia is an especially popular and sophisticated discipline among the many universities there. In Australia a bachelors degree in psychology is compressed into three years of specialized coursework, without the usual liberal arts electives in U.S. requirements. Students can complete their bachelors degree more quickly and graduate level students can be assured of studying within a highly refined international system with many professional and high level connections. 

Getting a psychology degree overseas has many long-term professional advantages to consider

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psychology Is Counseling Good for Addiction

When a person asks for help with some issue in his/her life, a safe answer is to suggest counseling. Trouble with your marriage? Get counseling. Kids acting up? Send them for counseling. Have a flight get cancelled? Try some counseling!

There seems to be this assumption that any counseling is good counseling? But why would that be? What if we take the word counseling and change it to a different word with the same meaning; do we still feel the same way? For example, by counseling I think most people mean interacting with another person, and receiving feedback in the form of interpretation, clarification, or advice. How would you feel about the idea that if your kids are acting up, you should send them to a stranger and have the stranger give them advice?

There is no shortage of bad advice out there, so why is there an assumption that advice is OK, as long as someone is calling it counseling? One could say that there is the assumption that a counselor has had training, and therefore the advice will be better than the random advice one typically receives from strangers. But we all know bad doctors, and the standards to become a doctor are incredibly stringent compared to those for counseling!

There is one thing about counseling that does guarantee a certain degree of safety-- any recommendation to undergo counseling is usually ignored! But in all seriousness, the people who are referred for counseling are often vulnerable, and so the issue of whether to blindly send them for advice from strangers does deserve some consideration.

There are, of course, different types of counseling. The counseling done by advanced-degree practitioners, such as psychiatrists and psychologists, is generally referred to as therapy rather than counseling. Therapy can be broken down into different types, and some conditions are more responsive to one type of therapy than another. Therapy is placed along a continuum from supportive therapy on one end to expressive therapy on the other. Supportive therapy would be the appropriate approach for a person undergoing trauma or significant stressors; expressive therapy would be the choice for a person who wants to develop better insight into how his/her mind works.

What is supportive vs. expressive therapy? Supportive therapy is aimed at strengthening the persons defense mechanisms, as those defenses are what keep us sane during times of stress. Expressive therapy, on the other hand, is aimed at questioning assumptions, digging up repressed content, challenging long-held impressions of relationships, etc. If a person is already under a great deal of stress, and then undertakes frequent sessions of expressive therapy, he will often get worse, even to the point of psychosis.

Undergoing therapy during active addiction at first seems to suggest some contradictions. During addiction the addict is very stressed out, so wouldnt that suggest that supportive therapy would be best? Absolutely not-- when treating addiction, I WANT the person to question the assumptions and rationalizations that keep the person using. So does that mean that expressive, psychodynamic psychotherapy would be a good idea? To that I would also say no. The using addict is so full of BS that psychodynamic therapy is generally a waste of time.

There are other problems with therapy during addiction, even in recovery. A psychiatrist may see addiction in a way that runs counter to the view of an addictionologist. Psychiatrists often see addiction as a symptom of something; addictionologists on the other hand see addiction as a primary disorder, that may be the cause of psychiatric symptoms or illness. To one, addiction is a chicken, to the other, an egg!

The addictionologist worries that the addict in therapy will start to find reasons for what he is doing, when the reasons arent the issue; the point is to just stop doing it! I get this image of two extremes among my patients; both have a month of sobriety and it is time to be working full time, and one says OK and starts filling out applications without even thinking about the nature of the job, and the other sits for weeks talking about how it feels to go back to work, wondering why it feels this way, and wondering if he will always feel this way. I like the addictionologist approach in this setting, including the as if approach that I have mentioned before. You dont feel like working? Just act as if you DO feel like working, and get to work. You feel tired? Act as if you dont feel tired. To a tired, nonworking person this sounds harsh; but I am only trying to help.

This gets to the issue of the harm that the wrong therapy or therapist, can do to a patient. If we have a person in treatment who is struggling-- nobody is laughing at the cocky, stupid jokes and he is getting close to that place where he drops the cocky attitude and brings his genuine self to the treatment scene-- If at that point, a sensitive, kind therapist came on the scene and started making little poor baby faces with the person, that could completely destroy the treatment. Addiction treatment is challenging-- it takes a person who can distinguish the real person and the BS person, and use the BS persons own words back on him to try to break though the cocky front. This is the work of a good addiction counselor. There are plenty of counselors who think they are treating addiction by providing education and support, but the great counselors are the ones who are addicts themselves, who hate addiction and who come to work ready to rumble every day. In a way it is like a chess match. Knowing how hard to push, and when to push a bit harder, and then knowing when to shift gears and reel in the newly-opened mind. It is tiring work, and given that we are literally talking about saving lives, the pay is not near good enough.

There are other dangers to therapy for those in recovery from addictions. All of us in recovery have what I like to think of as the addict inside. The addict is there for one reason-- to get us to use. The addict is crafty, or as they say in AA, cunning, baffling, and powerful. The addict inside has advantages over our sober selves; the addict has access to all of our minds, including our unconscious, where our fears, lusts, prejudices, hatreds, and other powerful forces reside. The addict can use these unconscious feelings to push us to do things that may ultimately destroy us. But our sober selves have our own advantages; we get to control our arms and our legs. Sure, the addict inside can push us up down, left, right, into using once we are in a dirty bar at 3 AM; but our legs can carry our sorry heads to the edge of the bed at 10 PM and then drop us there, so that we cant get near that bar! The problem with therapy is that is does at least two things to strengthen the addict inside. First, the addict LOVES to talk; you start up that therapy, and the addict gets to start up with all the BS, and given free rein the addict will win over logic every time. The second thing is that the addict will use confidence of our sober selves to the addicts advantage, like this: I see it now! I used because I was teased on the playground, and that created this pain in my heart that never went away-- so I needed a pain killer, and I took one, to ease the pain! Sounds pretty logical-- but you have just told the addict in you about a big weakness. The next time you are in a situation that is somehow similar to being teased at the playground, the addict will be ready to tell you about how much you hurt, and about how good it would feel to medicate the pain, and about how much you deserve to be medicated. And even more-- you are now a smart guy! You had that therapy, and so you are probably OK to use just a little bit!

Right.

I am not totally down on therapy for addiction. Just dont kid yourself. One of my favorite lines from the movies is still number one, a couple decades after when the movie came out--Clint Eastwood saying A good man knows his limitations. This is important advice to any addict who would like to stay clean. Know your limitations. Having psychotherapy--even real good psychotherapy that truly adds insight doesnt make you any safer. If anything, it increases the risk that you will talk rings around yourself some day and get into more trouble. Ill close with another wise saying-- nobody is too dumb for recovery, but some unfortunates are too smart for it.

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