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This content is for informational purposes only and is not intended to provide medical advice.
Addiction recovery is as much about making positive mental and behavioural changes as physical abstinence. Because how we think impacts our behaviours, addiction therapy and counselling are important aspects of addiction treatment in rehab. Behavioural approaches to addiction treatment provide a wide range of opportunities to those who want to overcome substance use disorder.
In addition, behavioural therapy is characterised by various treatments and techniques used to modify an individual’s negative behaviours and increase their life skills to deal with challenging, triggering situations and cravings. Altering these negative behaviours can help alleviate psychological problems and distress too. Though every individual has unique needs, here are the top seven behavioural therapies for addiction treatment that are widely used in rehab.
1. Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive-behavioural therapy, or CBT, is an addiction counselling approach used to treat addiction based on harmful thinking patterns, negative learned behaviours, and unhelpful coping techniques. When an individual undergoes CBT, they learn how to recognise thinking patterns realistically, use problem-solving skills in stressful situations, develop self-confidence, and work hard to understand others’ behaviours better. CBT also help people forget the past and move forward in life.
While many people find it challenging to quit substance use because of their negative thinking patterns and often develop anxiety and depression-like mental health issues, CBT helps create positive thinking patterns to contribute to a life of sobriety.
A few types of CBT include the following:
- Used in group and individual addiction therapy
- Help identify negative thoughts and turn them into positive ones
- Help clients develop strategies to apply when encountering stressful situations, cravings, or triggers that may occur outside rehab
- Focused on the present and is goal-oriented
- CBT skills are practical for everyday life
2. Contingency Management (CM)
Contingency Management is another behavioural therapy that gives tangible rewards to patients for reinforcing positive behaviours, such as abstinence. The idea is to increase the frequency of a specific type of behaviour, such as sobriety. It is widely used to treat alcohol addiction, opioid addiction, and stimulant addiction.
The specifics of contingency management therapy are as follows:
- Increase retention rates for addiction recovery programs
- Improve the chances of a person staying sober
- It can be used as a stand-alone treatment and in conjunction with CBT
- Suitable for all ages
- Covered under insurance because it is low-risk and highly beneficial for addiction treatment
3. Motivational Interviewing or Enhancement
A well-known addiction counselling method, motivational interviewing, motivates the client with the help of counsellors. They help the client maintain long-term sobriety by identifying their intrinsic motivations and focusing treatment on that.
In other words, when the clients are pushed to find their desire to get sober, this is when the counsellors achieve success in motivational interviewing. The counsellor allies with the client and gives them the opportunity or ability to make their own choices and evoke internal change, leading to sobriety.
Specifics of Motivational Interviewing include:
- Reduces the chances of relapse
- Increase client participation in treatment
- Improves retention rates for substance abuse
- Encourage clients to develop self-actualisation goals
- Clients are more motivated to find their inner strength to maintain sobriety
4. The Matrix Model
The matrix model is an addiction treatment approach that uses cognitive-behavioural therapy in conjunction with family therapy to focus on several aspects, such as positive behavioural patterns, relapse prevention, and participation in self-help groups to help clients achieve sobriety. This model is usually used to help fight stimulant addiction for drugs, such as methamphetamine, cocaine, and prescription stimulants.
The specifics of the matrix model are:
- Provides positive reinforcement and promises rewards
- Use drug testing to encourage honesty towards sobriety
- Help clients recover from negative behaviours and temporary setbacks
- Encourage the participation of the whole family
- Provides informative data about addiction recovery, life skills, and cognitive behaviours
5. Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT)
A type of behavioural therapy, dialectical behavioural therapy, or DBT, is used to treat people suffering from severe suicidal ideation. It teaches people how to overcome self-destructive behaviours, live in the moment, regulate emotions, find healthy coping mechanisms, and improve relationships with others. DBT also uses individual therapy, group therapy, and treatment interventions to help clients achieve and maintain long-term sobriety.
The specifics of Dialectical Behavioural Therapy (DBT) are:
- Teach clients to regulate their emotions
- Help clients develop functional behaviours
- It helps reduce self-destructive behaviours and suicide attempts
- Address harmful behaviours which cause addiction or disrupt the quality of life
6. Family Behavioural Therapy
When an individual’s substance abuse problems and co-occurring problems are addressed together, it is called family therapy. It is designed to encounter the issues related to the interconnected relationships within a family unit. The family suffers as a whole when their loved one is addicted.
The idea behind family therapy is to study the familial relationships of the addicted person and involve all individuals from the family in the treatment process. It is necessary to improve relationships, enable positive behaviours and communication, and address issues like stress to improve the home’s overall environment, leading to continued abstinence.
The specifics of family therapy are as follows:
- Improves communication among family members
- Keep the clients motivated and engaged during treatment
- Address mental health issues in the family
- It gives individuals a safe place to express themselves
- Provides educational information about addiction and its recovery
- Help ease feelings of stress, fear, anger, and confusion among family members
- Help family members develop coping skills and strategies to manage addictive behaviours
7. 12-Step Facilitation Therapy
The 12-step facilitation therapy considers addiction a spiritual and medical disease and offers a structured approach to its treatment. It is a manual-driven therapy that teaches addicts to accept, surrender, and actively participate in the recovery community to continue sobriety. The 12-step treatment was created with the mindset that a person is more likely to stay sober if they follow the 12-step approach. Also, the group involved in this therapy allows individuals to develop healthy relationships with peers, share experiences with others, and talk freely about their challenges without worrying about getting judged.
The specifics of 12-step addiction therapy are:
- Promotes deep introspection
- Help clients get the most out of the 12-step meetings
- Offer opportunities for social engagement with the recovery community
- Provides clients with opportunities to develop a sober, healthy relationship with the sponsor
- Exposes problems or psychological resistance
Choose the Best Therapy for Your Addiction Treatment
Overcoming addiction is an uphill battle, even for the strongest-willed individual. While finding the best therapy for addiction treatment entirely depends on your needs, circumstances, and personal experiences with addiction, those mentioned above are used alone or in combination. All these behavioural therapies have shown excellent results and proved to be well-rounded approaches for addiction. If you also need help to get sober, various rehab centres in the UK are equipped with the necessary tools to provide addiction counselling or therapy for your benefit. Contact them today!
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