Typical treatment plans for mental health often do not include alternative treatments such as brain-focused practices or general stress reduction methods. However, the tools learned in alternative treatments can be implemented in an individual’s daily life outside of initial treatment to ensure recovery success.
Treating mental health is a process; finding the right treatments is key to success. After treatment, it is crucial for individuals to incorporate different coping mechanisms into their life to maintain. This way, they can maintain a healthy lifestyle and continue working on their mental health consistently.
Roots Recovery offers alternative treatments to ensure effective treatment that teaches clients to stay consistent on their mental health journey. These treatments include transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and mindfulness practices.
What Is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?
TMS is a treatment commonly used for those with depression. This treatment stimulates the brain non-invasively with electromagnetic fields. During this therapy, the short pulses stimulate parts of the brain associated with depression. These areas of the brain are often underused due to depressive symptoms.
At Roots Recovery, this therapy is implemented for four to six weeks, depending on the client and their symptoms, for five days every week. In each session, the stimulation occurs for about 19-37 minutes.
TMS is an FDA-approved treatment where clients have recognized improvements in their symptoms. Many people report their symptoms either improving significantly or becoming unrecognizable entirely. TMS is also a top choice for many psychiatry hospitals, covered by most insurances, and is a tolerable therapy.
What Is Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing?
EMDR is a therapy that works to replace negative emotional reactions to memories or events with more positive or less-charged emotions. This occurs in a series of back-and-forth repetitive eye movements for roughly 20-30 seconds to stimulate memories and recharge emotions. Many consider this to be dual stimulation, where both the memories and emotions are being targeted in this practice.
While this eye movement occurs, a therapist works to guide clients in expressing new or less-charged emotions to associate with memories. EMDR does not require clients to focus on their trauma, providing a less overwhelming version of treatment. This is often a therapy used for clients with depression or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
What Are Mindfulness-Based Practices for Stress Reduction?
At Roots Recovery, the “whole-person” approach to treatment is valuable to our professionals and therapists. Likewise, treatment is not set to one specific moment of an individual’s life. In developing healthier habits and emotions and decreasing the impact of mental health symptoms, the process of recovery continues even after treatment. Taking the first step in receiving help is the beginning of an individual’s journey.
As clients begin their time with Roots, they will develop deeper connections between the mind, body, and spirit. With this connection being broken, it is often difficult for individuals to live a healthy, happy, satisfying, and safe lifestyle. Once treatment begins, manifesting this healthier life as well as healthy relationships becomes easier and less overwhelming.
The whole-person approach uses creative methods, group settings, and explorative practices to develop healthy coping mechanisms and heal the inner soul deeper. Some of these treatments include cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), spiritual exploration, mindfulness and meditation, drumming and art therapies, and movement-based therapies.
Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy
CBT is a therapy that focuses on exploring thoughts, feelings, and behaviors out loud with a therapist. This practice encourages clients to uncover unhealthy patterns and self-destructive habits. Once these are revealed, they work to restructure their thoughts and behaviors to manifest a healthy and positive mindset and lifestyle.
Spiritual Exploration, Mindfulness, and Meditation
Many mindfulness and spiritual exploration techniques at Roots Recovery focus on a Buddhist perspective. We use mindfulness as a stabilization tool integrated into the healing process. By the end of the process, clients find themselves able to cope with difficult situations as they arise and improve their self-esteem in return.
Drumming and Art Therapies
Musical and artistic expressions at Roots Recovery encourage clients to express themselves creatively. Creative exploration and expression allow clients to understand themselves on a deeper level without the overwhelming pressure of talk therapy.
For instance, creative writing groups focus on individuals writing down their thoughts and feelings in words. There are guided writing practices as well as free-write opportunities.
Music groups, often paired with drumming circles, improve client health and well-being through creativity and self-expression. The group focuses on music in relation to their recovery or treatment processes as they use song lyrics to express themselves and share their stories through music.
Movement-Based Therapies
Movement-based therapies at Roots Recovery encourage clients to express themselves through movement and release negative emotions in the process. In doing so, clients experience a closer relationship with their bodies on a physical level while also relieving themselves on an emotional level.
Consistency is key, especially in the early stages of treatment and recovery. Implementing movement-based, artistic, musical, and mindfulness practices into daily life can help individuals maintain progress even after the initial treatment period. These, in other words, can be “go-to” coping skills to sustain recovery and treatment progress.
Here at Roots Recovery, we implement modern and alternative treatments for mental health into our treatment plans to offer efficient services to our clients. Recently, transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS), eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR), and mindfulness practices have surfaced in mental health care. These treatments are safe and help clients restructure their emotions and beliefs in a more positive light. We encourage mindfulness and creative practices as well to promote connections between mind, body, and soul. After treatment is complete, we motivate clients to incorporate these healthy coping mechanisms into their daily lives to maintain and continue progress. We value consistency and success through our programs. Contact Roots Recovery at (562) 473-0827 to learn more.
