Contingency management behavioral therapy is an attractive behavioral therapy option in many different ways, however some therapists and facilities have said that it is far too complicated logistically to be a very useful form of addiction treatment. Contingency management therapy is a process designed around a kind of reward system that usually involves both negative and positive ramifications for an addict to keep in mind as they are making behavioral decisions. The strategy for this therapy is based on the scientifically proven truth that positive reinforcement is more likely to succeed as a way to change a person’s behavioral tendencies.

Kathleen M Carroll wrote an article Behavioral Therapies for Drug Abuse for The American Journal of Psychiatry. In the article Carroll says the following about contingency management therapy, “Contingency management, in which patients receive incentives or rewards for meeting specific behavioral goals (e.g., verified abstinence), has particularly strong, consistent, and robust empirical support across a range of types of drug use”  (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3633201/). Carroll continues to say that contingency management therapy is designed based on the principles of behavioral pharmacology and operant conditioning, or positive conditioning that leaves way to positive results.

The CMT strategy is a success only because it is a method that leverages the habit forming and reward center of the patient’s brain. The therapy is attractive to the reward system in the user’s central nervous system, which happens to also be the section of the person’s brain that most addictive substances tap into. Opioids, for instance, are drugs that prey on the addiction receptors in the brain. Turning drug and alcohol addiction own game plan against itself, by putting all of the therapy’s focus on the reward center of the brain and conditioning that center of the brain, can result in a very successful end result for contingency management therapy patients.

However, even though cognitive management therapy has a good reputation as far as delivering true and successful results. Indeed, in a lot of the cases the success can be very sustainable for those making an effort to live a life without drugs or alcohol, clean and sober of their addictive substance. In spite of this fact that it is so successful, most facilities do not employ the use of this treatment, including most programs in South Florida Drug Rehab. Ft. Lauderdale facilities in do not make use of CMT due to its substantial cost, for instance. Being able to pay for the necessary continual drug testing, and being able to find the funding for the rewards themselves, can be, for most treatment centers, a non starter for a treatment program.  Funding for addiction recovery treatment can be difficult to come by to begin with but when the basic functions of a therapy like cognitive behavioral therapy require so much of a chunk of the treatment budget, the therapy becomes more than impractical and would, in the end, likely become unsustainable. Anyone who suffers with an addiction to drugs or alcohol and who is looking for treatment facilities and assessing programs in an effort discover what kind of treatment is right for them, should always be careful to research the treatments offered at each of the various recovery facilities out there before committing to a facility. Call 1st Step Behavioral Therapy to find out what sorts of therapy we offer. We can help you understand better what different therapies can offer you.

Facilities for Substance Abuse Treatment in Florida Offer a Variety of Behavioral Therapy

Behavioral Therapy is a broader name for a group of several different kinds of therapy. Each of these treatments are characterized by very different strategies but all have the common goal – to create change, or at least an intrinsic hunger for a change, in the mind of a patient and to have that hunger filter down into a patient’s behavioral reactions and habits. Some types of behavioral therapy are better known by the public in general than others but each of them is used for that foundational purpose of behavioral change. All behavioral therapies to some extent or another have of late garnered a lot of attention as being a reliable way for people who are seeking treatment for drug and alcohol abuse to find some kind of relief and achieve success in active recovery. Residential detox centers and rehab centers have begun to respond to this as they create treatment strategies for their patients.

Some common behavioral therapies that are being used by substance abuse and addiction recovery treatment facilities are:

• Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy
• Motivational Interviewing Therapy
• Contingency Management Therapy

Regardless of if you think contingency management therapy is a kind of therapy that might work for you, behavioral therapy as a whole, is the foundation of most rehab programs and you will, more likely than not encounter one of the types listed above along the way in whatever rehab program you decide to attend. Contact us today to get started.