Recovery from an addiction, mental health condition, or co-occurring disorder is rarely accomplished without some form of therapy.
To achieve a breakthrough, the mind needs to be trained to think differently. Therapy also helps individuals regulate their emotions, recognize triggers, and develop long-term coping skills.
And while therapeutic techniques work wonders, combining counseling with mindfulness can have a more profound, lasting effect. The two work together to give those with addictions and mental health conditions a powerful set of tools. While therapy establishes a foundation for lasting recovery, mindfulness instills practical abilities. Here's how using mindfulness with therapy works so well.
Therapy Lays Down the Foundation
The reasons for the development of addictions and mental health disorders like depression are complex. The why behind these conditions is often multilayered with histories of trauma, chronic stress, and genetic links. In many cases, there's a combination of physiological and environmental contributors.
Therapy received as part of a rehab for depression program can identify the why behind the disorder. For instance, cognitive behavioral therapy or CBT reveals negative thinking patterns. This therapeutic approach also pinpoints negative or destructive behaviors. Once these adverse patterns are brought to the surface, the focus shifts to identifying ways to change them.
Other therapeutic approaches besides CBT include acceptance and commitment therapy and dialectical behavior therapy. Acceptance and commitment therapy focuses on accepting challenging experiences instead of trying to escape from them. For example, sometimes individuals start using substances to escape from life's difficulties.
Dialectical behavior therapy's focus is on building stress tolerance and regulating emotions. This form of therapy is more geared toward those with personality disorders. Nonetheless, all approaches work toward recognizing the psychological source(s) of distress or self-destructive behaviors.
Mindfulness Builds the Skills
Mindfulness builds three critical sets of skills for those recovering from an addiction or mental health condition. The practice makes individuals aware of their emotions, but teaches them to withhold judgment of themselves. Recognizing you're sad is vastly different than equating sadness with shame. Someone in treatment for depression learns to realize that feelings of sadness may have led them to develop coping mechanisms in the past.
Those coping mechanisms may have included neglecting chores and relationships or staying in bed all day. A person could have built up feelings of guilt and shame associated with those coping mechanisms. Mindfulness allows them to acknowledge and observe their sadness without assigning blame. They learn to develop compassion for themselves instead of thinking their sadness makes them deficient or incapable.
The second skill mindfulness builds is emotional regulation. Being able to understand what triggers an emotion and how to work through it are part of developing emotional regulation. Essentially, emotional regulation teaches resilience to difficult emotions in oneself and others. Learning self-soothing techniques and constructive responses to emotions equip individuals with ways to resist self-destructive behaviors.
Mindfulness has also been shown to rewire the brain and the body's reaction to stress. Practicing mindfulness regularly can increase levels of GABA, which provides a calming effect. Other neurotransmitters, such as dopamine and serotonin, can also increase. These chemicals help people feel pleasure and positive emotions. In addition, regular mindfulness can shrink the size of the brain's amygdala, which may result in a reduced fear response to stress.
Therapy and Mindfulness Are Stronger Together
Therapy and mindfulness can be highly effective when used separately. But when the two are combined as part of a holistic treatment approach, the effects are more likely to last. The results achieved from integrating mindfulness with therapy are also typically heightened. An individual hoping to heal from a mental health condition or addiction has a greater chance of sustaining their recovery.
With an integrated approach, someone with anxiety and depression can identify a link with childhood trauma. This trauma could be abuse, the loss of a parent before the age of 10, or witnessing a distressing event. A person's early family history may also include parents who had a substance abuse problem. Therapy helps individuals understand the source of conditions and coping mechanisms.
This understanding is good, but it's like learning management theory in a course about organizational behavior. Theory only gets you so far. Until you learn techniques for applying and practicing this knowledge, its value is surface-level. Maybe it works in its original form, maybe it needs a few tweaks.
Mindfulness instills the techniques people in recovery need to find what works. There's a focus on enhancing a person's overall well-being. With mindfulness, they learn new, positive coping mechanisms. Individuals also learn strategies for managing triggers and navigating challenging situations. Someone with anxiety and depression linked to early childhood trauma learns to reframe those experiences and calm their emotions through triggering situations.
Tools for Long-Lasting Recovery
Recovering from a mental health condition and addiction can be challenging because maladaptive coping mechanisms are already established. It's more serious than trying to change your diet, but the process has a few similarities. There are psychological, emotional, and physical factors involved.
Changing well-established behaviors isn't accomplished because you have the will to do so. Changes occur slowly by unpacking what led to your behaviors, identifying triggers, and learning new ways of working through those triggers. Together, therapy and mindfulness support long-lasting recovery because these tools help people gradually work through maladaptive behaviors.
It's one thing to acquire knowledge. It's another thing to apply it to real-world situations. Combining therapy and mindfulness syncs the two, so individuals in recovery can sustain what they've learned as life's continued challenges unfold.
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