Brighton and Hove Psychotherapy

01273 921 355
Online Therapy In the Press
  • Home
  • Therapy Services
    • Fees
    • How Psychotherapy Works
    • Who is it for?
    • Individual Psychotherapy
    • Child Therapy
    • Couples Counselling and Therapy in Brighton
    • Marriage Counselling
    • Family Therapy and Counselling
    • Group Psychotherapy
    • Corporate Services
    • Leadership Coaching and Consultancy
    • Clinical Supervision for Therapists and Trainees
    • FAQs
  • Types of Therapy
    • Acceptance Commitment Therapy
    • Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Body Orientated Psychotherapy
    • Private Clinical Psychology
    • CBT – Cognitive Behaviour Therapy
    • CFT – Compassion Focused Therapy
    • Coronavirus (Covid-19) Counselling
    • DBT – Dialectical Behaviour Therapy
    • Divorce & Separation Therapy
    • Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
    • Existential Therapy
    • Group Analytic Psychotherapy
    • Integrative Therapy
    • IPT – Interpersonal Psychotherapy
    • Non-Violent Resistance (NVR)
    • Family and Systemic Psychotherapy
    • Schema Therapy
    • TA – Transactional Analysis
    • Trauma Psychotherapy
  • Types of Issues
    • Abuse
    • Addiction
      • Gambling Addiction Therapy
      • Porn Addiction Help
    • Affairs
    • Anger Management Counselling in Brighton
    • Anxiety
    • Bereavement Counselling
    • Coronavirus Induced Mental Health Issues
    • Cross Cultural Issues
    • Depression
    • Family Issues
    • LGBT+ Issues and Therapy
    • Low Self-Esteem
    • Relationship Issues
    • Sexual Issues
    • Stress
  • Online Therapy
    • Therapy for Anger Management
    • Online Anxiety Therapy
    • Online Therapy for Bereavement
    • Online Therapy for Depression
    • Online Relationship Counselling
  • Practitioner Search
    • Our Practitioners
  • Blog
    • Ageing
    • Attachment
    • Child Development
    • Families
    • Gender
    • Groups
    • Loss
    • Mental Health
    • Neuroscience
    • Parenting
    • Psychotherapy
    • Relationships
    • Sexuality
    • Sleep
    • Society
    • Spirituality
    • Work
  • About us
    • Sustainability
    • Work with us
    • Press
  • Contact Us
    • Contact Us – Brighton & Hove Practice
    • Contact Us – Lewes Practice
    • Contact Us – Online Therapy
    • Contact Us – Press
    • Privacy Policy

May 30, 2016 by Brighton & Hove Psychotherapy 1 Comment

Does psychotherapy cure addiction?

Does psychotherapy cure addiction?

The answer to this question depends very much on whether addiction is seen as a disease in the medical sense of the word, and secondly, on whether it is indeed the goal of therapy to cure.

In response to these questions, I would suggest that rather than being a disease (as the 12-Step programmes are so fond of framing it) addiction is in fact a maladaptive way of managing uncomfortable feelings in lieu of more functional methods. Good affect regulation – the art of navigating our constantly changing emotional states – depends on our ability to use our mind to self-soothe and seek out other humans who will be available to witness and validate our experience. For some, reaching out to others is simply too frightening, and it becomes safer to use a substance or behaviour as a pseudo-other.

I would further suggest that the role of good psychotherapy is to help clients to build their minds so that they can use their minds to regulate their emotional state (see my previous blog on affect regulation.) It is not to cure. That does not mean that psychotherapy is not useful or an effective treatment, but it is a treatment to build the capacity to both process unprocessed experience and to help regulate affect.

What is addiction?

Addiction is a fascinating arena and one in which research is continuing, with conflicting ideas, views and theories competing for attention. However, some things have been established.

Addiction is a repeated behaviour that is used as a way of changing our experience and as a result changes our brain; the more we engage with the behaviour to change our experience, the more it changes our brain, making it more likely we then resort to the behaviour again. For many, it is a painful loop – especially where their addiction is socially unacceptable – drug addiction vs. being a workaholic – and has a higher cost of their relationship to self and others.

All addiction is chemical

Some researchers continue to try and draw a fundamental distinction between substance and behavioural addiction.  All addiction, I would argue, contains elements of both.  For example, someone who has an addiction to the most socially acceptable drug – alcohol – may find that their body goes through alcohol withdrawal when they stop drinking.  However, the success of their sobriety also involves letting go of significant behavioural aspects to their addiction such as socialising with certain friends; frequenting certain establishments; and even letting go of the pleasure of the ritual of pouring that 20-year old whisky from the decanter into a crystal tumbler at a specific time in the evening.  At the point of engaging in the ritual – moving to pour that drink – the addiction has taken over.

And behavioural addictions such as compulsive gambling; sex and pornography addiction and gaming addiction, to name a few, may on the surface seem to be simply behaviours without any substance influence, however, this is simply not the case.  Brain scans have shown that the brains of addicts light up in just the same way as those of substance abusers when that individual thinks about their addiction of choice.

Therefore ALL addictions change the brain and it can be argued that all addictions, irrespective of the substance or behaviour, are in reality an addiction to the chemicals and hormones released in the brain when engaging with that addiction – most notably, dopamine.

Addiction as an attachment disorder

Rather than viewing addiction as a weakness, disease or label for a person’s behaviour, it is far more helpful from both a compassion and treatment perspective to view the addiction as a way that that person regulates their emotional state, and to recognise that this has come about through a lack of emotional witnessing, validating and normalising behaviour (emotional neglect) on the part of their primary caregiver.  The behaviour and/or substance functions as a pseudo-relationship for the addict – one that feels far more consistent, safe and trustworthy than their experience of other close relationships has been.  This is also why despite loving their partners, families and children, some addicts simply cannot face letting go of their most important relationship – the addiction – and will forsake all others to protect it.

Who can heal the addict?

Psychotherapy is often critical in helping people with addictions to learn to adopt more functional ways of self-soothing and getting their needs met in relationship.  However all of this depends on being able to hold onto that thinking mind – the ability to mentalise – first and foremost and this can only happen through a prolonged and attuned therapeutic relationship.

Mark Vahrmeyer is a UKCP Registered Psychotherapist working in private practice and palliative care.

small-pdf-iconClick here to download and save a full PDF of this blog post.

Face to Face and Online Therapy Help Available Now

Click Here to Enquire

Filed Under: Mark Vahrmeyer, Psychotherapy Tagged With: addiction, Psychotherapy, self-care

Comments

  1. Norma Townsend says

    July 8, 2017 at 3:01 am

    I believe that psychotherapy can cure addiction. Our mind is very powerful. So, I think if we set our mind onto something, it can be achieved be it curing one’s addiction.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

Find your practitioner

loader
Wordpress Meta Data and Taxonomies Filter

Locations -

  • Brighton
  • Lewes
  • Online
loader
loader
loader
loader
loader

Search for your practitioner by location

Brighton
Lewes

Therapy services +

Therapy services: 

Therapy types

Therapy types: 

Our Practitioners

  • Mark Vahrmeyer
  • Sam Jahara
  • Gerry Gilmartin
  • Dr Simon Cassar
  • Claire Barnes
  • Sharon Spindler
  • David Work
  • Susanna Petitpierre
  • Thad Hickman
  • Angela Rogers
  • Chris Horton
  • Fiona Downie
  • Dorothea Beech
  • Kevin Collins
  • Rebecca Mead
  • David Keighley
  • Georgie Leake

Search our blog

Work with us

Find out more….

Subscribe to our Newsletter

Charities we support

One Earth Logo

Hove Clinic
6 The Drive, Hove , East Sussex, BN3 3JA.

Copyright © 2023
Press Enquiries
Privacy Policy
This website uses cookies to improve your experience. We'll assume you're ok with this, but you can opt-out if you wish.AcceptReject Privacy Policy
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled
Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.
Non-necessary
Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.
SAVE & ACCEPT