Individual Therapy for Personalized Addiction Recovery

Recovery is unique to each person. What shaped your relationship with drugs and alcohol, what emotions drive you to use, what behavior patterns have kept you stuck — these belong to you, not to anyone else.
And while group therapy, peer support, and being part of a supportive community are significant aspects of the recovery journey, there are parts of healing that can only happen in a private, one-on-one therapist-client relationship. This is what individual therapy provides, and this is an important part of our addiction treatment at Agape Detox Center.

Individual therapy — also called individual counseling or one-on-one therapy — is a type of psychotherapy where a client meets with a licensed professional individually in regularly scheduled therapy sessions.[1] During addiction treatment, individual therapy allows time to examine past experiences, identify the sources of your substance use, work through difficult emotions, and develop the self-awareness and coping strategies necessary to maintain sobriety.

Typically, one-on-one therapy sessions range from 45 to 60 minutes, depending on the needs of the patient. Many patients meet with their therapist multiple times weekly during inpatient treatment, then reduce frequency as they move into lower levels of care. Regardless of the level of care, all therapy sessions are conducted by licensed therapists, clinical social workers, or mental health counselors specializing in addiction and dual diagnosis treatment.

At Agape Detox Center, we use one-on-one therapy as the base of each patient’s treatment plan. Each of our staff members is trained in numerous evidence-based therapies, including cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), motivational interviewing, EMDR, and trauma-informed care, and selects the therapeutic approaches best fitting each patient’s unique experience, history, and recovery goals.

In addiction treatment, one-on-one therapy establishes a trusting relationship that allows for honest interaction between client and therapist. 

Individual therapy typically involves the following steps:

• Assessment and Treatment Planning: In initial therapy sessions, the therapist seeks to understand the full scope of the client — substance use history, mental health, traumatic experiences, family dynamics, and goals. The data collected from these assessments create the client’s individualized treatment plan, which guides future therapy.
• Exploration and Insight: As the therapeutic relationship continues to grow, the client begins to investigate the underlying factors contributing to their addiction, such as unprocessed trauma, mental health disorders, and behavior patterns that lead to their substance use. Through exploring these elements, the client becomes increasingly self-aware and develops insight into their own thoughts, actions, and behaviors.
• Skills Development: Individual therapy is where coping skills, strategies, and relapse prevention techniques are developed and practiced. Therapists instruct clients in evidence-based methods — cognitive restructuring, distress tolerance, and communication skills — help clients practice those methods in realistic situations, and help them plan for how to apply them to real-life situations to protect their sobriety.
• Continuing Evaluation and Adjustments: As clients progress through their treatment program, individual therapy serves as a consistent opportunity for the client to evaluate their progress, reflect on difficulties encountered along the way, and make adjustments to their treatment plan if needed.

Anyone looking for treatment for addiction can benefit from having one-on-one therapy as part of their overall treatment plan. However, individual therapy is particularly effective for people who:

• Have a history of trauma that is contributing to their substance use and require a private setting to process their experiences. 
• Are seeking treatment for both addiction and a co-occurring mental health condition like anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, borderline personality disorder, or bipolar disorder.
• Have difficulty opening up in a group format and need a more private setting to recover.
• Are working through deeply personal issues such as grief, identity, or relationship patterns that are not suited for a group format
• Have unique relapse prevention requirements that would greatly benefit from an individualized plan and access to one-on-one therapy.