Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT), depression and addiction treatment
"Providing group CBT for depression to clients with persistent depressive symptoms receiving residential substance abuse treatment is associated with better improvement in both depression and substance use outcomes," so says Katherine E. Watkins, M.D., M.S.H.S., from the RAND Corporation in Santa Monica, California, USA.
It appears that empirical evidence is now demonstrating what we have known in residential treatment for years, that CBT can be an effective tool for treating the symptoms of depression and addictive disorders.
So what is Cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT)?
It is a way of talking about:
- how individuals think about themselves, the world and other people
- how and what an individual’s does affects their thoughts and feelings
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy can help change how individuals think ('Cognitive') and what they do ('Behaviour'), with the view to change mal-adaptive thoughts and actions into positive ones. Unlike some of the other talking therapies, it focuses on the 'here and now'. However, while some people find CBT helpful, others dislike it, feeling they are being talked out of their emotions. Some find that CBT’s focus on positive thinking feels too superficial to them, minimising the importance of their personal history. Others find they don’t like the way CBT downplays emotions while seemingly overemphasising the logical and thought-oriented components of one's mental life. As a consequence of this they don’t get the results they desire.
Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) at Life Works
This is why we at Life Works provide an Integrative 12 Step Psychotherapeutic (IP) approach to recovery. IP embraces and affirms the inherent value of each individual. It is a unifying psychotherapy that responds appropriately and effectively to the person at the affective, behavioural, cognitive, and physiological levels of functioning, and addresses the functional, as well the spiritual dimensions of life.
IP integrates the personality: taking disowned, unaware, or unresolved aspects of the self and making them part of a cohesive personality, reducing the use of defence mechanisms that inhibit spontaneity and limit flexibility in problem solving, health maintenance, and relating to people, and subsequently re-engaging with the world. It is the process of making whole. IP also brings together CBT and other physiological treatment systems into one coherent package and thereby provides a unique approach to the treatment of the symptoms of depression and other addictions.