Individual therapy sessions are an important part of the treatment process for substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health disorders. Working with an individual therapist helps a treatment team understand where a client is in their treatment process. Each session helps a therapist unpeel the ubiquitous onion of their client as they discover more layers of underlying issues. With each discovery, a therapist can better report to the treatment team what needs to be worked on. As a result, each modality of healing and treatment will be specifically catered to helping the client work through what they are currently processing.
How does this come to be? For starters, a conversation. Therapists can employ different therapy techniques including cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy. Motivational interviewing, meta therapy, narrative therapy, and many other modalities can be used as well. Typically, specific therapy types are reserved for group therapy sessions where all clients can learn how to apply the tools of the therapy type to their everyday lives in recovery.
Individual therapy sessions are for talking and discovering. A therapist might ask to hear about a client’s past, more about their addiction, or how they are doing in treatment. Withdrawing from drugs and alcohol, being on new medications, and a change in environment can also cause dreams. During treatment, dreams can be especially useful in helping a therapist identify what is coming up for their client, even though their client might not be able to identify it themselves.
Generally, individual therapy during treatment is for helping clients begin to process their emotions and seek the source of their drinking and using or their co-occurring mental health disorders. More often than not, substance abuse and even conditions like depression or anxiety happen in reaction to a significant life event. Therapy helps the client work through the layers covering up their sources of suffering to find a way to heal.
If you are struggling with addiction or alcoholism, there is help available. Aurora Recovery Center proudly serves Canada as a dual diagnosis residential treatment center, offering programs for both substance use disorders and co-occurring mental health conditions. For information on how we can help you find the pathway to lifelong recovery, call 844-515-STOP.
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