Mental health treatment doesn’t have to mean conventional psychiatric approaches. Advances in therapy and new treatment interventions have made many of the most common mental health challenges more treatable than ever before, all without needing to take any prescription medications.
The Importance of Non-Medication Treatment Options
There are dozens of reasons why people may gravitate toward non-medication treatment for common mental health conditions.
People may have tried medication without success, experienced unwanted side effects, have medical conditions that contraindicate psychiatric medications, or simply prefer these approaches due to personal preference or religious belief.
Unfortunately, many mental health facilities take a medication-first approach to helping people achieve recovery. This simply doesn’t work for a number of different people, leaving some groups with fewer options to achieve the mental health recovery they deserve. But if you’re in this group, don’t worry; you aren’t out of options.
With recent advancements in non-medication treatment, you have an abundance of choices for learning to overcome your mental health symptoms and achieving long-lasting relief, all without the use of psychoactive substances.
Effective Non-Medication Treatment Options
Non-medication treatment options for mental health disorders typically fall into one of three categories: talk therapy approaches, behavioral interventions, and non-invasive technologies with targeted mental health effects.
Scientific advancements have made these therapies more effective, more affordable, and able to help more people than ever before. The options for non-medication treatment continue to expand year by year, but some of the most evidence-based options available today include:
1. Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a time-tested and evidence-based talk therapy approach that has helped people with a variety of mental health conditions for decades. CBT has been shown to be highly effective for treating disorders such as:
- Depression
- Anxiety disorders
- Substance use disorders
- Post-traumatic stress disorders
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder
CBT uses a wide variety of techniques and strategies to help people overcome the symptoms of these disorders, start thinking and behaving in new ways, and live happier and healthier lives in recovery.
At the core of CBT is the simple understanding that people’s thoughts, emotions, and actions all influence one another. CBT therapists refer to this as the cognitive triad and use each distinct element as a point for clinical intervention.
When working with a CBT therapist, you’ll learn to identify how your own patterns of thinking, feeling, and acting can stand in the way of living your best life in recovery.
Once you learn to recognize these patterns, your therapist can help you replace them with healthier coping strategies, lessening the severity of your symptoms and ultimately helping you achieve a sense of well-being.
2. Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) was built upon the foundational elements of CBT but shifts the focus away from changing problematic thoughts or behaviors toward learning what needs to be accepted rather than modified.
DBT was originally designed for the treatment of borderline personality disorder. Before DBT was created, borderline personality disorder had no effective treatment options whatsoever. Intensive DBT did prove itself to be effective at this goal but quickly showed promise in treating a number of other mental health challenges as well.
In DBT, you split your time between meeting with your therapist individually and attending specialized skills training groups to teach you different elements of the therapeutic process. These groups cycle through four main categories, including:
- Emotional regulation groups
- Interpersonal effectiveness groups
- Distress tolerance groups
- Mindfulness practice groups
These four skills training modules make up the core of DBT, and each contributes to helping people resolve their challenges with mental health conditions. DBT is a highly effective form of talk therapy and can play an important role in your non-medication treatment plan.
3. Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing
Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) was created specifically as a treatment for trauma and PTSD. It involves meeting with a therapist with specific training in bilateral stimulation, a technique that involves drawing your attention from one side of your body to the other and back again.
Bilateral stimulation can take many forms. Some therapists use a set of lights for their clients to track left to right, tapping on a client’s knees or shoulders, or headphones that emit alternating tones to the right and left ears.
By bringing your attention from one side of your body to the other, you are forced to use both hemispheres of your brain during talk therapy. This technique can help clients to feel more relaxed during therapy, delve deeper into difficult situations, and ultimately find release from the effects of trauma, distress, or anxiety.
EMDR has quickly proven itself to be a highly effective treatment option for people living with the effects of trauma or PTSD as well as with depression and anxiety.
Ultimately, EMDR is one of many new talk therapy approaches that integrate the body into the psychotherapy process. By helping people process difficult experiences through tapping, tracking objects, or listening to audio cues, people can find release from their stressors and achieve long-lasting recovery.
4. Mindfulness Training
Mindfulness has quickly risen to prominence as an effective tool in the treatment of several different mental health disorders, as learning to adopt mindfulness has a variety of benefits.
Several different evidence-based therapeutic interventions have incorporated mindfulness into their programming, including modalities such as:
- Dialectical behavior therapy
- Acceptance and commitment therapy
- Mindfulness-based relapse prevention
- Mindfulness-based stress reduction
But as helpful as mindfulness can be for your mental health, people frequently struggle to adopt a mindful state without the help of trained professionals.
Mindfulness training aims to provide just that. Starting a mindfulness training program can teach you skills like meditation, mindful movement, and breathing exercises. With the help of a professional who carefully guides and monitors your progress, you will ultimately learn what the state of mindfulness is and how to return to it at will.
Mindfulness is a state of consciousness — much like sleep, daydreaming, or alertness. The only way to truly experience and understand this state of consciousness is to experience it yourself — and you likely have before. You might have been in a mindful state while listening to music, eating a good meal, or playing a sport.
Mindfulness is often referred to as a state of being conscious without mental activity, being completely focused on the present moment, and not letting your mind run out of control with thoughts, anxiety, fear, worry, or distress. It’s sometimes described as being “in the zone.”
When you enter this state, you can put aside these mental health stressors, even if just for a little while. Learning to do so is associated with rapid reductions in anxiety and stress and can help many people overcome their mental health challenges entirely.
5. Deep Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation
Deep transcranial magnetic stimulation (dTMS) is an innovative approach to treating mental health conditions using advanced medical technology. In many common mental health disorders, such as depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder, certain brain regions are markedly underactive when compared to neurotypical controls.
This reduction in electrical activity is thought to be a causal factor in your mental health symptoms. Recovering from these mental health conditions typically includes a return to normal brain activity. While this can happen through any effective treatment method for your condition, dTMS addresses the problem at the source with a non-invasive form of electrical stimulation.
In dTMS, clients wear a specialized cap and helmet that are connected to finely tuned electromagnetic coils. These coils can create targeted electrical impulses deep within the brain, which kickstart electrical activity in regions that are underactive due to mental health conditions.
When these regions experience heightened electrical activity from dTMS, they form stronger connections with each other. These strengthened neural connections increase baseline electrical activity even well after the treatment session is over and can directly reduce the mental health symptoms a person is experiencing.
dTMS is an exciting integration of neuroscience and mental health treatment that has rapidly shown great success. While dTMS takes several sessions to be effective, the results from this innovative style of treatment can last for years and often result in total remission of a client’s mental health conditions.
6. Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy
Hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) is a method used to assist your body in repairing itself. If you suffer from a mental health condition caused by physical trauma or have experienced brain changes due to a mental health condition, hyperbaric oxygen therapy can help heal this damage and start you on the path to recovery.
Oxygen is one of your body’s primary building blocks for cell repair and recovery. When a tissue is damaged, oxygen is pulled from your blood to help speed the healing process. Yet, often, the amount of oxygen available in the blood is insufficient for a rapid healing process.
With HBOT, clients are placed in a sealed chamber that is filled with pure oxygen at a higher pressure than normal. This drives your body’s available oxygen stores upwards, allowing your body to heal faster and make essential repairs for both physical and mental health.
Studies have shown that HBOT can be a beneficial part of a mental health treatment plan and can improve the symptoms of conditions such as PTSD, anxiety, depression, or difficulties with memory and attention.
7. Neurofeedback
Neurofeedback is a technique designed to help people understand how their brains work and how they can begin to change brain activity.
In neurofeedback, clients have sensors placed on their heads that read brainwaves in real-time. Different brain waves have repeatedly been associated with different mood states, such as a focused state, a relaxed state, or a stressed and anxious state.
This brainwave data is transmitted directly to a screen right in front of you. This allows you to actively view your brain’s activity as it happens. With the help of our team of trained professionals, you can learn to control different brain states, ultimately learning to switch between different states at will.
This conscious control of the central nervous system can be a valuable tool for learning to stabilize and regulate your emotions, help you to fall asleep faster, and improve your attention and focus. Neurofeedback is an FDA-approved treatment and can help with conditions such as anxiety, depression, and even attention-deficit disorder.
Start Non-Medication Treatment at APN
At All Points North, our team understands that the standard psychiatric approach doesn’t work for everyone. That’s why we provide a comprehensive suite of non-medication treatment services, the very best in talk therapy options, and a commitment to bringing exciting and innovative mental health treatment options to our clients.
If you’re interested in getting started with non-medication treatment at APN, reach out to our team by calling 855.934.1178 or filling out our online contact form to see how our treatment options can help you to live with freedom and confidence.
References
- Cuijpers P, Berking M, Andersson G, Quigley L, Kleiboer A, Dobson KS. A Meta-Analysis of Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy for Adult Depression, Alone and in Comparison with other Treatments. The Canadian Journal of Psychiatry. 2013;58(7):376-385. doi:10.1177/070674371305800702
- “Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) for PTSD.” Va.Gov: Veterans Affairs, 10 Aug. 2018, www.ptsd.va.gov/understand_tx/emdr.asp.
