Thoughts lead to action. When does the thinking of an addiction-challenged client go awry? The Dunes’ clients have often found themselves trapped in patterns of living that have them reacting in a habitual manner, thereby accumulating continued negative attention instead of the love and respect that would make their lives so much more satisfying and worth living. Typically, clients have adopted patterns of thinking and behavior which lead them to make assumptions about themselves and others that are not entirely accurate and do not foster the effective development of interpersonal connections which are the basis of enjoyable healthy relationships.
Systematic Behavioral Addiction Treatment Protocols
At The Dunes, our behavior-focused protocols involve goal-oriented, systematic procedures. This introduces clients to new ways of responding to situations in their lives in a spontaneous and creative fashion. The aim is to give clients a second chance at establishing and maintaining relationships that are pleasurable for all involved.
Together with our clients, The Dunes clinical staff, examine the thoughts which surround and encourage client action or inaction and the stories, often unspoken, clients tell about themselves and others. This is a process which allows careful examination of client ambivalence about and justification of addictive behaviors. Together we are able to help clients acknowledge the judgments they and others make which often serve as triggers for relapse.
The Dunes Behavior-Focused Protocols are carefully designed to seek out, identify, and replace dysfunctional habitual responses with reasonable, mindful solutions. We focus on “the here and now.” Experience shows this to be a practical approach which helps clients substitute addiction-fueled responses with a new pattern of living which supports clients in achieving long term recovery.
Behavioral Therapy for Addiction
Utilizing experiential therapy for addiction including psychodrama, equine-assisted therapy, art therapy, and eco-psychoeducational experiences, The Dunes team assists clients in seeking self-knowledge about how they regard themselves and others and their place in the world. We look at coping mechanisms. Do they still work? What are the core ideas clients have about themselves?
At The Dunes, we help clients question, examine, and test the cognitions, or thought processes and beliefs that inform their actions. New thoughts precede new behavior. In addition to the experiential therapies just reviewed, The Dunes seeks to help clients adopt new beneficial behaviors through community reinforcement, cue exposure, relapse prevention strategies, role-playing, peer feedback, by reframing situations and their consequences, and working with the family system. As clients succeed at changing their thinking, they increase their chances of responding to others and situations in a spontaneous and effective manner which strengthens their recovery. At The Dunes new patterns replace the old ones and with the techniques employed at The Dunes, our clients learn to experience the joy of a life free from addiction.