When you’re trying to do what’s right for your mental health, cognitive behavioral therapy can be just what you need.
This can help you undo habits and patterns that aren’t helping you in your life. You will need the assistance of a professional that can assist you in this regard.
There are several cognitive behavioral therapy techniques that you can put into play that will be useful to you. Follow these tips so that you can get the help you need.
1. Undergoing Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Homework Assignments
There’s a reason that cognitive-behavioral therapy is useful when people are seeking addiction recovery to get their lives back in order. It is an active process that the patient takes part in, and it involves consistently learning and growing with each session.
This is so much the case that one behavioral therapy technique involves actual homework assignments that you carry out until the next session.
For instance, people who are going to a relationship therapist because they’re too passive might receive a homeowner assignment to be more self-centered for a week to see what happens.
This is similar to the infamous Seinfeld episode in which George Constanza revolutionized his life by doing the opposite of what he would normally do. Your therapist will give you homework assignments based on the things that you need to grow, and you will be able to learn from the results you receive.
2. Studying and Learning From Behavioral Reactions
It’s important that you also gauge your reactions when going through cognitive therapy.
We all have triggers and natural impulses that dictate the way that we react, generally without even thinking about it. You’re a prisoner to these impulses until you peel back the layers and see them for what they are.
This way, you can study why you do what you do, and this gives you a little bit of space to recognize your reactions and make changes as you see fit. Your therapist may run you through a series of drills to test these reactions so that you can get a feel for the things that have you getting in your own way.
3. Aversion Therapy
When you are suffering from addiction or some other form of undesirable behavior, aversion therapy is often the best way to go.
With this form of therapy, the therapist helps you to build associations that curb this habit. For instance, someone who hates slugs and is trying to get off cigarettes might undergo therapy to associate smoking with putting a slug in their mouth. It sounds gross, but it’s effective.
This is why this form of therapy is particularly useful when people are trying to recover from addiction.
4. Play Therapy
Never lose sight of the fact that we’re here to play.
Even as adults, play is the best way to learn and make mental associations. This is why singing songs is one of the best strategies for studying and learning information.
When you are able to be lighthearted about overcoming issues through therapy, you will also have far less resistance to it. There are several forms of play therapy that your therapist can put you through so that you can do what’s best for your life.
5. Psychoanalytic Therapy
This happens to be one of the most common forms of cognitive-behavioral therapy, which involves speaking to the therapist one-on-one.
With these sessions, your therapist will talk you through a series of subjects to unearth and analyze some common patterns and trends. Sometimes talking it out with someone else can reveal things about your thought process that you couldn’t see on your own.
We all have blind spots and cognitive-behavioral therapists know how to help pinpoint these things so that you can make changes as they come along.
6. Child Therapy
When you have a child that is in need of therapy, this is also one of the most useful forms of behavioral therapy.
Child therapy often involves playing and spending time talking through issues. The therapist might use a puppet or tell stories as a means to put the child at ease and get them to open up.
Kids might need therapy for a number of reasons, from help getting used to new surroundings and life changes or working through trauma.
7. Addiction Recovery Therapy
If you are dealing with addiction problems, getting direct therapy that works through these issues is the best course of action to take.
Your therapist will work through the behavioral patterns that led to the addiction to begin with. It will also help you through the triggers that cause you to turn to your substance or addiction of choice.
Addiction is generally the result of some sort of trauma, so isolating the variables and working through them is the right course of action to take. Make sure that you get off the physical addiction, while also getting the therapy that you need.
Make Use of These Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Techniques
These cognitive behavioral therapy techniques can be helpful to you regardless of what sort of issues you are contending with.
Undergoing this form of therapy can be helpful to you no matter what you are going through in your life. It’s important that you find the help of the right therapist to assist you with this.
When this is what you need, we would love to help you out.
If you need help with your addiction recovery, contact us today and start living your best life.