Today, people can accomplish many of their goals or daily to-do items at the touch of a button. For example, you can get food, medicine, and entertainment online and delivered to your door. However, some things in life still take time, and an individual therapy program can be one of them.
In fact, there is no one answer to how long you should attend therapy. Reach out to Virtues Behavioral Health in Los Angeles, California at 855.579.8599 and learn more about how individual therapy counseling can work for you.
What Is an Individual Therapy Program?
As remarkable as it sounds, there is still some stigma associated with therapy. However, in Los Angeles, California, it is not unusual to hear people talk about getting help from a psychologist or therapist. Relationship issues, personal issues, mental health problems, trauma recovery, and addiction are some of the most common reasons people enter therapy.
Individual therapy means meeting privately with a qualified therapist for one-on-one sessions. You may engage in a combination of different treatments depending on your issues, goals, and your therapist’s approach. Some modalities frequently used in individual therapy include:
- Talk therapy (clients talk about their problems and receive advice from a compassionate, non-judgmental source)
- Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR)
- Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)
- Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
- Psychoanalytic therapy
By combining more than one type of therapy, mental health professionals can help their clients learn new tools and strategies to cope with current challenges and heal past traumas.
The Benefits of an Individual Therapy Program
Every type of therapy program is valuable. Typically, clients undergoing addiction treatment participate in group therapy, family therapy, and individual therapy. Each session is an opportunity to learn about yourself, improve relationships, and find new ways of thinking and behaving that move you closer to your life goals.
Some of the benefits of individual therapy counseling include the following:
- Privacy to discuss anything, no matter how personal
- Trauma processing
- Patterns and behaviors recognition and changes via strategies
- Appropriate diagnosis and assistance for a mental health disorder
Addiction can create a great deal of shame—shame for things you’ve done under the influence, for things you’ve done to maintain your addiction, and for how your choices have impacted others. Working one-on-one with a personal therapist helps build the bonds of trust needed to feel safe and explore all of the issues that have had a negative impact on your life.
How Long Does Therapy Last?
It is often said that a therapist’s goal is to make his or her job obsolete. Most therapists suggest clients meet with them at least once a week for the first month.
After they have had a chance to get to know one another and build a rapport, sessions may continue weekly or transition to every other week. Most details depend on the client’s issues and how easy or difficult it is to apply the new tools they will receive in therapy.
In a recovery setting, sessions can be much more frequent, even daily. As clients transition out of their inpatient or outpatient recovery program, they will be encouraged to continue with individual therapy in Los Angeles.
How long does therapy last? People grow and heal at different paces. Therefore, each person brings a unique story and process to the therapy experience. It is not unusual to see a therapist regularly for a year or more with occasional “checkups” after that.
Find Individual Therapy in Los Angeles at Virtues Behavioral Health
There are many options for individual therapy in Los Angeles, and not all therapists are experienced with the unique mental health challenges accompanying substance and alcohol use disorders. However, we are.
Call Virtual Behavioral Health today at 855.579.8599 for compassionate mental health experts who specialize in the field of addiction therapy.
