Mental Health

Personality disorders like avoidant personality, dependent personality, obsessive compulsive, histrionic, narcissistic, and paranoid personality disorders are all challenging to treat with traditional therapy. It is widely understood that mental health disorders of many kinds can arise out of experiences in childhood. For personality disorders this is most often true. Treating the core of personality disorders means needing to treat the childhood from which they stem. Traditional psychotherapeutic methods don’t always go back to the core issues and rectify them. Of course, there is no going back in time and changing the past. Through schema therapy, however, there is a way to meet the part of the past that is still alive in an adult, and heal that living part. The more that the inner child, or Vulnerable Child can be healed, the less need for maladaptive coping behaviors. The American Journal of Psychiatry released a large control trial in 2014 which suggested Schema Therapy had a greater success in the treatment of personality disorders than popular forms of therapy treatments commonly used. Schema Therapy saw higher rates of recovery as well as a great reduction in depression and other symptoms. In addition, patients who regularly received Schema Therapy were less likely to drop out of their therapy. Statistically, 80% of the patients in Schema Therapy were considered “recovered” while the numbers for other kinds of therapy didn’t reach beyond 60%. Through therapy and treatment, patients become aware of their different forms of self, or the different narratives in their head, for example, the critical parent. It is most challenging to get into the mode of the vulnerable child because that is where the core existence of hurt and pain, and often trauma, exist. Maladaptive behaviors and beliefs form around protecting or even ignoring the vulnerable child because confronting or living in those vulnerable feelings threatens the protections which have been set up. However, as Science Daily reported, “Direct access to the Vulnerable Child is the key to the therapist being able to meet these needs and is the cornerstone of treatment.” Treating personality disorders includes a combination of adulthood skills for coping as well as inner child work to heal the wounds of the past. Without treatment and therapy, personality disorders can worsen overtime and complicate adult relationships. To cope with childhood pain and the pain of living with an unmanaged personality disorder, many turn to substance abuse.

Borderline personality disorder is one of the most pathologically complex personality disorders which can make it feel impossible to know just what is going through the mind of someone who lives with it.

Treatment centers are frequently criticized for offering “luxury” treatments like massage therapy to their clients who are recovering from drug and alcohol addiction. Massage is a healing therapy and treatment modality. Going to treatment for drug and alcohol addiction is about more than simply learning how to quit using drugs and alcohol. It is meant to be a time for healing, mind, body, and spirit. Most people are unaware of the fact that drug and alcohol addiction lives in the body as much as it does the mind. Harmful substances are harmful to the body inside and out. Massage therapy provides a therapeutic healing touch which is soothing and deeply relaxing. Above all else, recovery is a form of stress management. Massage therapy helps clients reduce their stress and learn to relax, which helps them not produce symptoms of craving. Feeling connected to healing human energy, massage work can help to break up toxins in the body, release stored up emotional energy, improve overall health, and create deep relaxation. Massage therapy releases emotional energy which can reduce the effects of depression and anxiety: Eastern forms of therapeutic treatment like massage believe that emotion is energy and that emotional energy is stored in the body when it is not properly released. A body that is tight and tense can create blockages where the emotions cannot get out. For the therapeutic healing process, massage therapy can serve as an aide to emotional release and processing, which is often a challenge for addicts and alcoholics. Massage therapy increases the production of dopamine and serotonin while it decreases adrenaline and cortisol: Dopamine and serotonin are neurotransmitters in the brain which act as chemical messengers to other parts of the brain. Communicating pleasure and happiness, the stimulation of these hormones help the brain balance out the deficit of dopamine and serotonin caused by drug and alcohol addiction. In addition, the increase of dopamine and serotonin production can help reduce the adrenaline and cortisol in the body, which are stress hormones.

Early recovery is not always easy. Even after taking time off from work to go to treatment, you will still be in need of an occasional mental health day from work. Taking a day off from work to take care of yourself is always okay and often necessary. Two Kinds Of Mental Health Days: Preventative And Emergency Sometimes it is easy to see the stormy weather coming in. All indicators point toward a necessary mental health day coming up, with plenty of warning. This is the need for a preventative mental health day. Other times, the storm hits without advanced notice. Even though the weather reports predicted sunshine, the sky is dark and gray. This is the need for an emergency mental health day. Each type of mental health day can be planned for differently and should be approached in different ways. Preventative Mental Health Day