Psychological Aspect of Recovery

Emotional responses to situations and circumstances in our lives can tempt us to use drugs and alcohol. These triggers are deeply rooted in our thought processes and belief structures. Often our ability to cope with these triggers is based on our ability to react rationally to events and circumstances in our lives. The way we manage our relationships, process emotions, and deal with stress, trauma, and challenges is crucial to the outcomes we will experience and to our overall satisfaction and fulfillment in life. Our well-being is directly related to our day-to-day coping mechanisms. By taking into account the psychological aspect of recovery, St. Gregory Recovery Center ensures that the whole person has started to heal through addiction recovery – mind, body and soul.

Cognitive behavioral therapy

A growing body of evidence shows that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is among the most effective treatments available for substance abuse. Our proprietary curriculum focuses on teaching our guests to identify areas of irrational thought or behavior and to replace those thoughts and behaviors with new, rational ones. Learning and practicing these skills throughout treatment provide a framework for reacting rationally and deliberately to unexpected life events.

In addition to the regular practice of CBT skills, a focus on learning how people can make lasting behavioral changes directs these new, cognitive skills in order to help guests not only to stop using substances but to start making more significant behavioral changes aimed at transforming their lives.

Brain fitness therapy

The brain has an amazing ability to recover from strain and damage, and working the brain can lead to similar benefits seen physically from regular exercise. Adaptive, online tools help guests assess and strengthen emotional and cognitive abilities. Our guests use adaptive and focused online tools designed to develop new neural pathways that enable easier coping with stressful life situations, sharpen cognitive skills, and improve the ability to self-regulate.

Results charted from these exercises show dramatic improvement in the ability to handle depression, anxiety, and stress. When typical guests come to St. Gregory Recovery Center, they score in the bottom 20% in all of these areas, and by the time they finish our seven-week program, they rate in a normal range at around 50%–a dramatic improvement in such a short period of time, and a change strongly correlated with lasting success.

Individualized treatment plans

Different people have different experiences of addiction. Every guest of St. Gregory Recovery Center works with our clinical, medical, and wellness staff to develop an individualized treatment plan that addresses that guest’s specific goals and needs. Individualized workout plans, treatment goals, one-on-one sessions with counselors, and a strong focus on each individual’s personal goals and objectives provide the framework for each recovery plan.

Predictive outcomes measure

The St. Gregory Recovery Program© is the only substance abuse program in America that uses integrated predictive outcomes. Guests evaluate daily and weekly sessions according to the Session Rating Scale (SRS) and the Outcome Rating Scale (ORS). These tools were developed to measure the relationship between the practitioner and guest as well as to predict likely program outcomes for each guest on a weekly basis.

We use these tools to ensure that all of our guests are receiving maximum benefit from programming, and we dynamically adjust individual and group programming on the basis of our measured results. This tailored approach allows us to give each guest the best possible opportunity to transform their lives.