In recovery, often clients are only treated for their substance use or mental health disorders in a clinical manner. Clinical care often focuses more on the symptoms of addiction or mental health without targeting the root cause. However, it is important in the recovery process to engage with holistic care alongside clinical care. Holistic care helps clients understand themselves better, regain control over their feelings and thoughts, and heal entirely rather than just eradicate their symptoms.
At First Steps Recovery, clients always have holistic care services available to them.
What Is Holistic Care?
Holistic care fits into a whole-person approach. This includes non-traditional options of therapy for clients struggling with addiction. Holistic care helps clients express themselves — their thoughts and feelings – through non-verbal means. Rather than only using talk therapy as an outlet, holistic care helps clients engage with themselves in various ways to work through inner difficulties. These holistic approaches to care allow clients to express themselves, understand their thoughts and emotions, and eventually communicate with others about their difficulties in order to work through them and heal.
This approach involves the mind, body, and spirit. Holistic care helps clients understand that recovery involves multiple aspects of oneself and one’s life. This includes family, mental well-being, spirituality, and creativity, to name a few. By involving multiple aspects of one’s life and self in the recovery process, the recovery journey becomes unique and personal. Holistic care encourages clients to deepen their inner connection to themselves in order to promote inner peace, harmony, and balance.
Healing the whole person, not just one’s symptoms, is crucial for recovery. Holistic care allows clients to understand the root causes of their addiction and see their addiction as something they can control, rather than focusing on fixing symptoms.
Why Holistic Care Matters in Recovery
Holistic care matters in recovery because it helps clients regain a sense of control over themselves. By learning about oneself through holistic care, clients begin to connect with themselves rather than push difficult thoughts away. Holistic care also allows clients to engage with individualized care. Rather than staying confined to a certain treatment path, clients can engage in different therapies that work best for them. Recovery is about the individual, and holistic care gives clients an outlet to find purpose and reconnect with their lives.
When in recovery, clients often believe that they are confined by their addictions and/or symptoms. However, recovery is about regaining control and recognizing that their lives stretch beyond addiction. Holistic care helps clients recognize their goals and encourages self-discovery and personal growth. Rather than “fixing a problem,” the holistic approach to recovery allows clients to see beyond addictive limitations. This is crucial for long-term sobriety in recovery.
Holistic care is also important in recovery because these new and different outlets of care can be engaged within one’s daily life. For instance, programs that involve art therapy or creative writing therapy have components that can be applied outside of one’s treatment program. Holistic care offers clients outlets they can return to at any point to regain control over themselves and express themselves. Many people find that they need therapies they can personally incorporate into their daily lives to promote ongoing sobriety
Holistic Care Approaches to Recovery at First Steps Recovery
At First Steps Recovery, holistic care is implemented into clients’ treatment programs. The staff believes in physical and mental recovery from addiction. Rather than just treating symptoms of addiction, the team works with clients to uncover root causes to heal the whole person. Going beyond evidence-based treatments, clients can engage in experiential therapies that fit with them as individuals. The staff believes every client is unique, and finding the right recovery path for each individual is important for long-lasting sobriety.
Clients have the opportunity to engage in field trips, art therapy, recreation, yoga therapy, horseback riding, music therapy, and wilderness experiences at First Steps Recovery. These opportunities provide clients with ways to connect the mind, body, and spirit and create inner harmony. For example, during music and art therapies, clients work to express themselves in creative ways. Often clients have a hard time expressing themselves verbally in talk therapy. When this is the case, it is difficult for the client and therapist to work through their hardships. In the more nature-based holistic approaches, clients can ground themselves in nature and strengthen their inner peace and harmony.
Being able to open up with oneself and understand one’s difficult feelings aids clinical treatment and therapy. Holistic care and clinical care go hand-in-hand at First Steps Recovery.
Other Holistic Care Options
There are many other holistic care options that clients can engage with at First Steps Recovery. For instance, clients may find journaling, creative writing, deep breathing meditation, or theater to be helpful. These options also promote inner reflection and connection.
Here at First Steps Recovery, we provide clients with holistic approaches to care such as art therapy, music therapy, yoga therapy, field trips, horseback riding, and wilderness experience as add-ons to our clinical treatments. Holistic options are tailored to the individual, giving clients the ability to take control over their recovery journey and understand recovery as an individual journey. Rather than feeling stuck in clinical treatments and therapy, which often focus on the symptoms of addiction and not the client as a whole, clients can engage with these unconventional methods to deepen the connection between their mind, body, and spirit. To learn more about holistic care, please call (844) 489-0836.
