Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) At Spring Hill

At Spring Hill, you will have access to a wide range of treatment options, including evidence-based therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). As one of the most popular and effective addiction therapies, CBT is typically used in both group therapy and individual settings to help clients develop and strengthen practical skills for long-term recovery. With this form of therapy, you have the opportunity to discover how negative thoughts and beliefs shape your behavior and develop the skills necessary for addressing them.

What Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy?

Originally developed as a treatment for depression and panic disorder, CBT combines behavioral therapy and cognitive therapy approaches to address the beliefs, and thought processes, behind people’s problematic behaviors and mental health symptoms. Studies have proved CBT’s effectiveness in treating a wide range of mental health disorders, including depression, anxiety disorders, substance use disorders (SUDs), personality disorders, schizophrenia, and more, as well as other health conditions, such as fibromyalgia and chronic low-back pain.

The basic idea behind CBT is that healthy thought patterns lead to healthy responses, including healthy emotions and behaviors, while unhealthy thought patterns do the opposite. Those behaviors and emotions can then reaffirm the original thought patterns, and the cycle, whether positive or negative, continues. CBT uses a practical, skills-based approach to help people gain control over this cycle.

Key Aspects Of CBT For Addiction Recovery

Addiction can make a person feel as if they have lost control, and CBT can help them regain the control they need to make positive changes for living a healthy, fulfilling life, including by maintaining sobriety. Because CBT is a skills-based practice, it gives clients practical and tangible ways to address unwanted behaviors and improve their mental health. As clients consistently use the skills learned in CBT, these skills are strengthened over time, simultaneously strengthening their recovery and overall mental health.

CBT teaches cognitive, behavioral, and emotional regulation skills to help people change unwanted behaviors. Some of the key approaches are detailed below.

Cognitive Restructuring

With CBT, people can get at the core of their negative emotions or unwanted behaviors by learning how to challenge and change the unhelpful thought patterns that led to them. This is known as cognitive restructuring.

However, they will first need to identify their core beliefs and any cognitive distortions stemming from those beliefs, both of which the therapist helps with.

Common cognitive distortions experienced by people with addiction include:

• All-or-nothing thinking: Not recognizing gray areas or middle ground, e.g., “If I stop drinking alcohol, I can’t have a social life”
• Dismissing the positive: Assuming that negative outcomes are the default, while positive outcomes are merely coincidental and not normal, e.g., “I turned down a drug offer today, but I probably won’t be able to say no the next time”
• Minimizing: Dismissing accomplishments as unimportant, often using words such as “just” or “only,” e.g., “It was just one day of sobriety”
• Magnifying: Assigning too much importance to relatively trivial things, e.g., “I ruined my healthy lifestyle because I ate ice cream today”
• Overgeneralizing: Making broad conclusions without considering specific information, e.g., “I could never be happy without drugs”
• Catastrophizing: Assuming the worst possible outcome, e.g., “I’m going to relapse and then everybody will hate me”

Cognitive restructuring also involves identifying and addressing selective attention as it pertains to upholding negative beliefs, or the tendency to focus only on information that supports the negative belief.

Healthy Behaviors & Coping Skills

Healthy behaviors can reinforce the more positive, realistic beliefs that people begin to adopt through CBT, such as “I am capable of living a healthy, happy life.” These behaviors may serve as coping skills, such as relaxation techniques for anxiety, stress, or other triggers for drug or alcohol use. Problem-solving, goal setting, and journaling are also common focuses of CBT sessions, and clients may gain additional behavioral skills from exposure interventions, if appropriate.

Increasing positive behaviors is also shown to improve mood, further supporting the recovery journey.

Learn More About Comprehensive Addiction Treatment At Spring Hill

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