The 5 Benefits Of Group Therapy In Addiction Treatment
Addiction is a neuropsychological disease that, as it takes hold in the mind of the affected person, causes them to become more and more closed in on themselves. Locked in the constant search for ways to alleviate the discomfort generated by abstinence, in the avoidance of places and situations where there is not easy access to drugs, in the constant search for money to pay for substance consumption, etc.
Taking this into account, the idea that, to overcome an addiction, the solution is not only to intervene in the individual and in the psychological processes that begin and end in their mind, in the functioning of their brain, may seem strange. However, that is the reality, and that is why Group therapy is very useful in offering professional help to people suffering from addiction. That is to say, a good part of the therapeutic resources that will help them recover their lives consist of going beyond their individual experiences and interacting with others. Let’s see why.
Group therapy is, as its name already suggests, a form of psychotherapeutic intervention in which several people participate at the same time and there is not only one patient and one mental health professional. But it should not be confused with family therapy or couples therapy either; Here, people who come for help usually don’t know each other, even though they have similar problems.
In the case of addiction treatment, attendees usually experience either the same type of addiction, or somewhat different variants, always in the area of impulse control problems and the discomfort generated by withdrawal. Throughout the sessions, which are carried out periodically (for example, once or twice a week), the therapists act as facilitators of a series of activities that almost always revolve around communication, mutual support and the development of social and emotional management skills.
In most cases, group therapy is combined with other types of intervention in the form of individualized psychological therapy, to address the mental health problem from various areas.
The main benefits of group therapy for people with addictions
Here we summarize the main advantages and beneficial effects of group therapy for addiction cases.
1. Provides constant examples and references on how to deal with addiction
One of the most satisfying and exciting aspects that addicted people find in group therapy sessions consists of being able to be inspired by people who have been able to make more progress than oneself and, despite this, do not seem to be perfect nor have special abilities to face the temptation to relapse. Taking their example is a way to imagine a version of the “I” that has been able to burn through several stages of the process of overcoming the addictive disorder.
2. Gives the possibility of organizing ideas and expressing emotions
Addictions are pathologies that produce a large amount of discomfort and reasons to feel frustrated, and accumulating all these experiences and leaving them unexpressed can generate significant psychological wear. Something as simple as having people willing to listen to our problems helps to organize our ideas, to stop avoiding certain memories or distressing thoughts, and consequently, to better “tame” the accumulated discomfort, by putting it into words and defining its implications and its reach in our emotions, without exaggerating it or fearing the simple idea of focusing our attention on it.
Having a series of familiar faces that accompany us in our process of overcoming an addiction helps generate a system of external sources of motivation, which gives us more reasons not to relapse. This occurs because participants in group therapy for addiction cases learn to commit to their own well-being, given that they understand that this is also linked to the well-being of others; At the end of the day, everyone makes a group effort to motivate each other, to try not to give themselves reasons to be sad about what has happened to their partner.
4. Allows you to retrain social skills destroyed by addiction
It must be taken into account that many people who have been suffering the effects of addiction reach a point where they do not feel able to communicate in a normal way with others, because they have seen many of their most significant relationships break down. .
This lack of self-confidence produces a self-sabotaging effect and self-fulfilling prophecy: they assume that “by default” they cause rejection in others and therefore they easily become defensive. For this reason, group therapy provides them with an ideal context to properly develop their social skills again.
5. It gives them points of view to better manage the feeling of guilt
Many people who have suffered from addiction have an ambivalent relationship with guilt: either they assume that they deserve everything bad that has happened to them, or they blame others for their problems in managing withdrawal. Given this tendency toward dichotomous thinking, group therapy is useful for learning to see things from other points of view. That is, to break with the usual ways of interpreting reality.
Do you want to go to therapy to overcome an addiction?
If you are interested in starting treatment for chemical or behavioral addictions, contact us.
In Recal Clinic We are specialists in caring for patients suffering from addictive disorders and we offer both individualized medical and psychotherapeutic assistance as well as group therapy sessions. The intervention can be performed through outpatient care or through residential treatment in our fully equipped clinic. You will find us in Majadahonda.
