Introduction:

Psychotherapy or simply referred to as therapy has been defined by the American Psychological Association as “the informed and intentional application of clinical methods, procedures and interpersonal stances derived from established psychological principles to assist people in modifying their behaviors, cognitions, emotions and/or other characteristics in directions that the participants deem desirable.”

Thus, psychotherapy involves implementing psychological principles by a practitioner formally trained in the use of these principles to help others change their behavior or thoughts or deal with emotions or other significant incidents. Accounts of several talking cures date back to ancient Greece. English psychiatrist Walter Cooper Dendy was the first to coin the term psycho-therapia in the 1850s. Sigmund Freud is unanimously referred to as the father of modern psychotherapy. Substance abuse counseling centers use two effective forms of therapy to help individuals struggling to overcome substance addiction which are group counseling and individual counseling.

Individual Counseling:

Individual counseling implies a therapeutic situation where one patient is involved in the therapeutic process with one or more therapists. The therapist can be formally trained in the use of therapy like a psychologist, psychiatrist, social worker, or counselor. Thus, therapy is different from getting advice from friends, family, or well-wishers as this involves a formally trained professional providing a specialized service. American recovery center often use individual counseling to help people fight psychological conditions that lead to drug dependency and may cause relapse.

Advantages of individual counseling:

• The confidentiality of the patient’s issues is most easily fortified in the case of individual counseling as this involves just the patient and the therapist/s.
• The patient receives the complete and undivided attention of the therapist, which allows the therapist to thoroughly comprehend and cater to the patient’s specific problems and come up with an individualized approach tailored for the patient.
• The level of comprehensive analysis and treatment can be much more intense in the case of individual counseling
• The therapy can be customized to suit the specific requirements of the patient in a personal counseling session.
• The therapeutic alliance, which is the functional relationship between the therapist and the patient, is the strongest in individual counseling.
• A patient can choose a conducive time for a personal counseling session, and it can also be quickly scheduled.
• It also provides scope for the development of self-awareness by discussing issues with the therapist and receiving feedback.

Disadvantages of individual counseling:

• Individual counseling is usually more expensive compared to group counseling
• Some patients may have a solid need to resonate and identify with individuals facing the same problems, catered to in group counseling.
• Since the patient is the center of all the attention in the individual counseling, it may cause discomfort.

Group Counseling:

Group counseling is roughly defined as the therapeutic arrangement where at least one therapist treats more than one patient at a point in time. Some groups have more than one therapist attending the patients; most commonly, two therapists address a group simultaneously. The size of the group is not fixed and may vary depending upon the type of group counseling. A group of substance abusers seeking therapy often has 10 to 12 members in a single session. The ideal number of clients in a group counseling session is between 6 to 12. Sublocade doctors near me often prescribe group counseling to their patients struggling with substance addiction.

Advantages of group counseling:

• Group counseling sessions ensure that the patient doesn’t feel isolated and that others share similar problems that they face. This has been called the principle of universality.
• Group counseling provides the opportunity to both receive support from others and to offer support to others. Both of these are important in treatment. Getting help from others is part of the bonding or therapeutic alliance in groups, whereas providing support to others facilitates growth and learning.
• The therapeutic alliance that happens in groups is broader than the alliance that occurs in individual counseling. This allows for the assimilation of many different perspectives.
• Group counseling sharpens communication and socialization skills along with teaching individuals to express freely and accept criticism.
• Sharing one’s experience with others is often therapeutic in itself.
• Group counseling is quite affordable and generally less expensive than individual counseling.

Disadvantages of group counseling:

• No single patient is the center of attention in group counseling sessions. Thus there is no standard level of focus on any patient.
• The confidentiality of a patient’s issues is far lower than individual counseling sessions.
• Group counseling often allows unwilling and unmotivated individuals to mask their issues and avoid accountability.

Substance abuse counseling near me happens in both forms. While both have their individual advantages and disadvantages, it is up to the patient to decide which will suit them better. Both have equivalent efficiency in addressing a large number of issues, especially substance addiction recovery.

Summing up:

Recovery centers near me offer counseling as an effective measure to counter addiction’s psychological and social factors. Sublocade doctors are prescribing therapy to their patients along with sublocade shots. While the relevant authorities try their best to bring down sublocade cost, therapy continues to be a tried and tested measure to counter addiction.