Psychodrama Group Therapy is Highly Beneficial to Women Seeking Sobriety
This is our fourth and final blog in our series on psychodrama therapy.
Just to give a quick recap, we have defined this form of experiential therapy as one that allows for the healing of past events by reenacting them in a group setting. This happens with the help of a therapist and peers through role rehearsal and dynamic expression.
We have talked about psychodrama as an effective trauma therapy used to help women who have unhealed childhood wounds or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Remember – PTSD can cause painful symptoms which often lead to self-medicating with drugs and alcohol, which can ultimately progress to an addiction.
In last week’s blog, we briefly discussed psychodrama techniques like role reversal and mirroring. These are highly effective in healing trauma in women.
Now, let’s talk about how about how you can personally benefit from psychodrama therapy in a clinical setting when you start to recover from a substance use disorder.
Here are five ways that psychodrama group therapy is highly beneficial to women seeking sobriety:
# 1 You Can Finally Get Sober
The most important benefit to psychodrama group therapy is it will help you find recovery from addiction. The recovery process is about more than simply remaining abstinent from drugs and alcohol. It is about healing. But, first, you have to stop putting mind-altering chemicals into your body.
Psychodrama groups help women address the underlying issues that caused them to get high or drunk in the first place. This is one of the first steps on the road to sobriety. If you don’t address the issues at the root of the addiction, you may not stay sober for very long.
# 2 You Get to Heal Trauma Wounds
Psychodrama group therapy is just one of the clinical services we offer at New Directions for Women. We believe is vital to recovery because it helps to heal wounds from the past – especially childhood wounds. These might include sexual abuse, physical abuse, neglect, and abandonment.
Through the implementation of psychodrama techniques, women get to create a better ending to painful stories of the past. Finding closure helps recovering women move forward in sobriety.
All too often, women stay stuck in the addictive cycle because they simply cannot resolve the pain of the past. This is one of the many ways psychodrama exercises are so beneficial. They heal old trauma wounds.
# 3 You Will Stop Blaming Yourself
We see it so often. Women blame themselves for things that happened to them in the past that were never their fault.
Women grow up and blame themselves for being sexually abused as a child. Or, they might think it was their fault they were physically beaten by a parent growing up because they were bad. Sometimes they harbor resentment toward themselves that they didn’t do more to stop domestic violent situations.
Psychodrama groups help to put an end an end to self-blame. As an adult, you can make peace with the reality that you were a powerless, innocent child who could not have done anything differently at the time.
# 4 You Can Find Freedom From the Past
When most women come to us for addiction treatment, they tell us they feel like their past haunts them. It is almost as if they are being visited by the same old demons over and over again. They can’t seem to escape the past.
Painful memories keep them up at night and they have flashbacks of past traumas. They desperately want to move forward with their life, but they just can’t seem to let go of the memories of yesteryear.
Psychodrama group therapy helps with this. It stops that same tired mental tape from playing over and over again. This creates room in the mind’s eye for plans to create a bright future.
# 5 You Can Experience Forgiveness
Whether you feel you need to forgive yourself or someone in your past – or both – psychodrama can help you find forgiveness for yourself and others. When these techniques are carried out with peers in a group setting under the supervision of a therapist, psychodrama can work a kind of magic on the heart and mind.
It is amazing what can happen in recovery when you experience forgiveness. You no longer have to bear the burden of resentment, blame, shame, or guilt. You don’t feel a gnawing sense of anger all of the time. You feel lighter. What a relief!
These are just five of the many ways women benefit from psychodrama group therapy when they stay with us at our residential rehab or attend our outpatient program.
This concludes our four-part blog series on psychodrama groups. Do you think you might benefit from this type of therapy?
New Directions For Women is Still Helping Women in the Face of the COVID Crisis
The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way of life as we know it in the United States. However, it has not changed the unfortunate fact that women across the country are in desperate need of lifesaving substance use disorder treatment. There is no question that addiction treatment is essential.
Throughout this crisis, the doors at New Directions for Women have remained open. We are accepting new patients as we have been for more than 40 years. We remain fully operational during these uncertain times and continue to take extensive safety precautions to prevent the spread of the corona virus.
New Directions for Women offers treatment for women of all ages, pregnant women, and women with children. We believe in healing the addicted woman and bringing restoration to the entire family.
When you’re ready to get sober and find a new way to live, we’re here. With the help of psychodrama group therapy, and the other many transformational clinical services we offer, you can find a new way to live here at New Directions for Women and break the chains of addiction.
