How Do CBT and DBT Help Addiction?

September 8, 2023

Harmony Place Team

Addiction is a disease that requires comprehensive treatment to address all areas of health and wellness. Thus, treatment plans must also address a person’s behavioral health needs. Behavioral therapy for addiction will greatly improve the treatment outcomes for those in recovery.

Harmony Place in Los Angeles, California, is here to address all of our clients’ therapeutic needs. Clients get the best chance of a successful recovery as a result of our comprehensive, integrated approach to addiction addiction. We offer two common types of behavioral therapies—cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavior therapy (DBT).

CBT and DBT Overviews

There are several types of behavioral therapies for addiction and other behavioral health issues. Overall, behavioral therapy for addiction helps clients understand the connections between thoughts or beliefs and behavior. Most behavior therapies are a variation of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT).

What is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy?

CBT’s history goes back as far as the 1920s and has become more refined throughout the years. CBT is based on the idea that a person’s maladaptive behaviors result from unhelpful thinking patterns or beliefs. By challenging these unhelpful thoughts and beliefs, clients can find healthy ways to cope with stressors.

However, while CBT is quite common, therapists developed more nuanced variations to address specific disorders or issues. Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) emerged from the roots of CBT.

What is Dialectical Behavior Therapy?

Marsha Linehan developed DBT in the late 1970s, as she found that standard CBT practices were not very effective for clients with chronic suicidality and other self-harming behaviors. DBT combines CBT with additional skill-building for emotional regulation, distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindfulness. In addition, DBT is the primary therapeutic approach to treating borderline personality disorder (BPD).

CBT and Addiction

For those in recovery from addiction, CBT can help them learn more about what drives their addiction—and how to stop it. During CBT, clients challenge unhealthy thoughts and beliefs that affect their mental well-being. These unhealthy thinking patterns can keep clients feeling stuck and dissatisfied with life.

The Process of CBT

The primary focus of CBT is identifying a person’s unhealthy thoughts and beliefs. Once a person is aware of these thoughts and beliefs, they can begin to challenge them. After that, clients can change their thoughts and beliefs from being unhelpful and negative to helpful and positive.

For example, a person might struggle with low self-esteem and drink alcohol to cope with this. The client might have an unhelpful belief driving these issues, like “no one cares about me.” The therapist will help the client challenge this belief by testing it in reality—by pointing out that the person has a treatment team or support group that cares for them, for instance.

What Are the Goals of CBT?

Overall, the goals of CBT are to challenge and change unhealthy thought patterns and beliefs. These thoughts influence a person’s emotions, which then influences their behaviors to cope with these emotions. By changing the root of the problem—unhelpful thinking—a person can feel better about themselves.

As a result, cognitive-behavioral therapy for addiction helps clients feel relief from the challenging emotions that lead to their substance misuse.

DBT and Addiction

DBT is similar to CBT because a client’s unhealthy thought patterns are also addressed. However, during DBT, clients also focus on learning to hold two seemingly conflicting beliefs at the same time. This is because some clients struggle with thought distortions, such as black-and-white (or “all-or-nothing”) thinking.

The Process of DBT

For example, a client might struggle with relationships, especially during arguments with their partner. They might have an all-or-nothing belief that their romantic partner must never show any sign that they are upset or annoyed. In other words, the client might struggle with the idea that their partner can both love them and occasionally feel upset with them.

A therapist can help a client identify these types of thought distortions. Since many clients in dialectical behavioral therapy for addiction struggle with the distress caused by conflicting thoughts, therapists also help clients learn to tolerate this distress.

What Are the Goals of DBT?

The goals of DBT have a unique focus compared to CBT. This is because clients in DBT struggle with emotional regulation, black-and-white thinking, and distress tolerance.

Therefore, the therapeutic goals of DBT can include the following:

Accept that two conflicting ideas can co-exist
Learn to tolerate discomfort and distress
Gain coping skills to regulate emotions
Effectively communicate with others during a conflict
Use mindfulness techniques to remain grounded when dealing with stress

These goals can help clients who struggle with self-harming behaviors and intense emotions as well as substance misuse.

Is It Right for You?

Behavioral therapy for addiction is right for clients who have challenging, unhelpful, or distorted thoughts and beliefs that fuel negative emotions. Often, clients misuse drugs or alcohol to cope with these negative or unpleasant emotions. By changing their thoughts and beliefs to healthy ones, many clients feel better about themselves and accept healthy ways of coping with stressors.

Behavioral therapy can help with the following mental health disorders and emotional health issues:

Depression
Anxiety
Low self-esteem
Eating disorders
Grief and loss
Relationship issues
Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD)
Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
Substance misuse
Impulse control

The above-mentioned list is by means exhaustive. For anyone struggling with addiction, behavioral therapy, along with other treatments, can create a well-rounded program to effectively combat addiction.

Begin Behavioral Therapy for Addiction Today

Addiction frequently stems from underlying emotional health challenges or mental health disorders. Behavioral therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) and Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) operate on the principle that an individual’s thoughts give rise to emotions, which in turn influence their behaviors. Consequently, unhealthy thought patterns can lead to adverse behaviors. However, by identifying and transforming these negative thoughts, clients can alter their problematic behaviors, fostering healthier coping mechanisms.

In order to make our services as accessible as possible, Harmony Place accepts health insurance from a broad range of providers, including Anthem BCBS, Aetna, Cigna, Blue Shield of CA, Carelon, and Humana. We understand that the financial implications of treatment can be a significant concern, and by accepting various insurance plans, we aim to ease this burden and allow you to focus on your recovery.

Contact Harmony Place in Los Angeles, California, today to begin behavioral therapy for addiction.

Chris P

I've been to 12 rehabs over the last 20 years and NO other place has touch like Harmony Place! From the owner right down to the cleaning lady, everyone here is kinda and warm. God has blessed this place and I feel privileged to have come through here. I recommend anyone who is going through their struggle with mental health or substance abuse to pick up the phone and come! You won't regret it!

Joseph S

This place is incredible, kind, loving, patient, rigorous, educative, caring and the best place for recovery. Ill be part of the alumni crew

Monica G

I had very good experience at Harmony Place From first day I came, staff was very kind and make me feel welcome and safe. Everyone was friendly and always try to help me. The therapists are very good and caring. They listen to me and help me understand my problems better. I learn many things from them and feel stronger because of their support. The nurses also very nice and professional. They always check on me and make sure I am okay. Food was good and facilities were clean and comfortable. It help me feel more relaxed and focus on my recovery. Management also doing very good job. Everything was organized and you can see they really care about patients. I am very thankful for this place and all the people who work here. I recommend this center to anyone who needs help.

Denton

Awesome place great people u want to check this place out most definitely 😜

Tyler

A treatment center where the owners truly care about your recovery and after care.. cannot recommend enough

Jodana S

If you want to detox painlessly this is the place! The staff is A1. They truly care about us. The groups are awesome . Residential is crazy awesome! You live in a mansion. With a private chef who makes the best food. Community meeting that gets results fast, they care about your opinions. Pool and Jacuzzi are beautiful. If your struggling with addiction this is the house you should come to. I LOVE HARMONY PLACE!!!!! Thank you to all the staff they go above and beyond to make this experience comfortable therapeutic. Don't spend another day in your addiction come to Harmony Place right now!

Cass

I’ve been to 4 treatment centers before Harmony Place, and I can tell you without a single doubt that this is the absolute best by FAR. The past ones were luxury Residential Treatment centers that just treated every single client the same not tailoring to each individual, and were basically just in it for the money, dropping the ball each time. I can also tell you that I’ve never met the CEOs, but here, David comes to the facility almost every single day, and makes sure he get to know every individual here. He is incredibly kind, and was even willing to transfer me to another facility with a higher level of trauma therapy due to me having a lifetime of trauma and PTSD that just is going to take a long time to tackle. He truly cares about all of the clients having all of the tools that we need before getting released to the real world. No more of other CEO would ever be willing to miss an opportunity at making more money and even paired with my IMPECCABLE case manager to find a different facility that was more trauma based. My case manager, Sam, goes absolutely above and beyond in every single aspect. She makes sure you have a smooth transition into aftercare, provides out of this world advice when it comes to sobriety, and takes the time out of her day to make sure that FMLA and short-term disability are completely taken care of during your stay. I’ve never met a case manager that could ever compare to Sam. Ever. I feel lucky to have met her, genuinely. Marissa, my therapist, is SO SWEET, actually listens to you, and provides advice and therapy tailored to each individual’s experience. She’s handled every mood I’ve been in, never judged me, and allowed me to feel safe enough to tell her things I’ve never told any person or therapist in my 29 years of life. I’ve been going to therapy for the past 15 years, and none of those therapists even come close to how amazing she is. I’ve been to 4 other treatment centers in my life and none even come close to Harmony Place. The facility is clean, organized, and high-end. I would recommend Harmony place to my family, friends, and anyone seeking treatment. I feel SO BLESSED to have landed in their hands. THANK YOU TO EVERYONE IN THE CLINICAL STAFF BEYOND WORDS. I love you guys ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️. I feel more confident than ever in my Recovery.

Gabe H

Where to begin.. Harmony is a place that will forever be a part of my story as the first step in my recovery journey. I’m so grateful for this program. The staff is very friendly, and many of them understand what addiction is like, for they themselves have recovery stories of their own. They have an awesome team of therapists, group facilitators, nurses, RA technicians, medical and health professionals, a wonderful case manager for aftercare that cares deeply for your next steps; making sure you are set up for success. They have a wonderful admissions team (shoutout to Marielle who was so kind and understanding of my messed up situation). Everyone is very relatable and friendly. They invest heavily in the importance of diet and nutrition too - there’s a full time professional chef. I gained all the weight I lost and wanted back in the first two weeks lol. On top of the intensive programming they do throughout the day, they take us out to experience various kinds of outside groups to get a taste of the real world, and also take us on social outings during the weekend. If you’re serious about getting better this place will meet you where you’re at and prepare you to launch with a renewed mind and heart.

Monica P

I can't begin to explain just how amazing Harmony Place is. In fact, when we sit down with the owner, Jeff, and clinical director, David, on Monday mornings to have a house meeting, they ask us what they could be doing better. A bigger blender for smoothies is the ONLY thing we could come up with. Let me begin by addressing some negative reviews. If you notice many of them are from people, or are referring to people who have been asked to leave. It is because of harmony places protection of their clients that provide ideal conditions for healing and progress. There is a screening process that it is implemented where they make sure the clients they admit are ready to start a life of sobriety. Some people slip through the cracks. Some people find out a few days or weeks in that they've changed their minds. Some are inappropriate and break rules. It happens. When Harmony Place ask people to leave, It's because they are protecting the people who are here that want treatment. In effect, they're providing exactly what I needed for a genuine start to recovery. When I began my search for a treatment center, my requirements were that the facility's provide an environment in which its residents all want to be there and that it is ethically ran. I got that and so much more at Harmony Place. As well as a structured routine, they also provide a confidential and nurturing environment where one feels safe and where profound healing can begin. Their program offers a sound foundation where further progress in sober living is almost guaranteed. In group meetings, we enjoy getting to know ourselves again and with deeper understanding about why we are the way we are. We are provided with skills to handle real life. Its here that I've come to understand that its not addiction that has driven me to make a mess of my life. It is the trauma that I endured and not processing it correctly that lead to poor thinking patterns that opened the door to addiction resulting in poor life management. So we start at the bottom. Trauma. They help us understand that trauma has led to our own toxicity, what that trauma looks like and how to get out of our own way. Process groups help us learn how to take accountability and foster healthier relationships. I learned here that changing the way I think is absolutely possible and imperative to the healing process. Harmony Place offered me hope when I previously felt I was unfixable and a support team that truly loves me. Even after I leave here, I have contacts that almost demand I keep in touch and an alumni meeting where I can return to the facility on Thursday nights. I wasn't a 12 stepper when I came here but my first experience with it was not one where I was ready to stop using. I understand now that the steps will work for me. It's certainly is not the only modality that they teach. In one group, we are provided an opportunity to sit with a recently retired medical doctor to just ask questions. Another is with a nutritionist. There are a handful of people IN recovery that come to lead groups that are all accredited highly specialized where I felt understood and not judged. The knowledge I have gained here is life changing. It is also versatile and relatable for all types of people. my favorite group was dialectical behavioral therapy. There are breathing classes and sound bath groups and I started doing yoga in the morning. There's a dharma meeting they take you offsite that focuses on Buddhist values. A fantastic onsight chef provides three meals and you can have special requests. We facilitated our own Movie nights during free time. I cant forget to mention you get your own one on one meetings with your assigned primary therapist and there is comprehensive medical support complete with 24/7 nurses and a doctor that shows up throughout the week. If this is what you need to recover and you have mediCAL, cancel your mediCAL and get insurance Harmony Place accepts if you can. There are people to help you with that as well. Just call. Many, many thanks to the staff. ✔️Another life changed.🙏

Cody B

This is such an amazing place truly changed my life. I would recommend this place to anybody if they’re looking for a strong recovery house that truly cares about your recovery and not about just money So if you’re ready to change your life, don’t miss out on the greatness of harmony because this place is where it’s at

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