Top addiction therapists in 92354: Loma Linda, CA.

Addictions make us feel good, filling unmet needs in our lives, and have destructive ends if not controlled. While you were just having fun, it becomes an attachment, or even a secret affair. When relationships get difficult, we know where to go to escape the pain, thus getting stuck. Why family therapy? The cycle of addiction almost always intertwines with relationship patterns that I've helped successfuly resolve through increasing emotional awareness and intimacy. Ask me about our multi-family support group for families with recovering members (free as of Nov. 2011). I'm supervised by Dr. Ian Chand, LMFT (MFC 21263) of CARE Counselors.

I specialize in working with internet, video game, cell phone, social media, and porn addictions. These process addictions have acquired a power over you that is difficult to break. I take a multi-faceted approach to helping you experience the change you desire. I use Motivational Interviewing to help you solidify your desire to change, I utilize abstinence based strategies and methods to help you establish and sustain sobriety, I help you learn how to replace these addictions with real relationships and interests that foster real relationships and I support you in identifying or establishing a natural support network that helps you to maintain and sustain the new changes in your life!

I take an environment and harm reduction approach with her clients. I am caring and understanding of addiction issues. I have experience in working with families and friends suffering from a loved ones addiction. I assist my clients in finding the core and underlying issue of their addiction. I look at the client's whole environment and how that plays into their addiction.

I have dedicated my career primarily to helping the addicted. I have over 23 years of recovery from my addictions so I understand addiction from both personal and professional perspectives. I can offer you an absolutely judgment-free environment. You will be treated with respect and dignity. Alcoholism, drug addiction, codependency or any other addiction, does not have to be your future. Through a combination of insight oriented therapy and behavioral changes, I can help you overcome your addiction, allowing you to enjoy a life of freedom from self-destructive behavior. Trust someone who's been there. My professional experience in this area of psychology is huge. I know this stuff!

Few are aware that an addiction is a form of self-medicating where the addiction helps cover up deeper problems. This is especially true for a person experiencing major depression. The addiction serves to uplift a person out of the depression and into a state of pleasure. The problem is that the addiction serves as a temporary fix and becomes a problem in itself where chasing the high comes at an even greater cost than that experienced as depression. Suicidal thoughts, imprisonment, loss of income and financial problems, and poor health all come with the addiction. A person experiencing addiction must seek counseling for the addiction and for the root cause.

Addictions medicate being wound up inside. Tools help people release the buried feelings that actually cause addictions! Stop treating the symptoms by trying to "white knuckle it" or give yourself pep talks. Buried feelings in old wounds are the real problem so we need tools to reach the cause, not treat the symptoms! Core wounds can keep you so wound up you can't sleep, feel anxious or crave some way to relax and "get out of your head". Tools help you understand addictions at a deeper level than just trying to say no! Addicts are actually in a great deal of pain underneath the wound up/bored level of living. Really grow out of addictions. You don't need a crutch, you need a cure

Struggles with addiction and substance abuse can often be accompanied by guilt and shame, and this guilt and shame are typically triggers for continued use/relapse. Use of a strengths-based approach to treating substance abuse can tap an individual's own strengths to gain insight and to increase coping skills. Motivational Interviewing, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Interpersonal Therapy can also prove useful to address unmet needs, feeling "stuck" and challenging irrational thoughts that lead to continued use.

There are many kind of addictions....chemicals....gambling....adultery....sexual...pornography....internet. These addictions often serve to "mask" intense emotions felt by an individual. The addiction serves, at least for the moment or hour to allow one to "escape". Obsessive Compulsive behaviors follow, often by the decline in quality of life. Working with a professional therapist will allow you to talk about your life, your emotions, your unresolved issues. This journey of discovery can lead to a better self image, better relationships (since addictions are "instead" of people) and better health.

We treat addiction through the use of psychotherapy, which is one-to-one counseling, and neurofeedback. Neurofeedback supports and compliments individual therapy in that it regulates dysregulated brain waves while the patient learns to overcome their addiction. The Basal Ganglia is strongly implicated in addictions and partly responsible for the part of the brain that engages in repeated behaviors. We work to break these habits by creating new and healthier neuropathways.

In this generation, the growth of individuals with addictions is very significant. Addictions originally were isolated to alcohol and drugs. Today’s addictions are understood to also include, food, sex, money, gambling, video, internet, internet games, internet chatrooms, internet pornography and other types of prolonged, repeated and out of control behaviors and actions. Addictions take over a person’s ability to have of self- control of the action which leads to the fogging of any will power to stop the addictive activity even when a matter of great importance comes in conflict with the addiction. Addictions ruin people and all relationships surrounding them. Addiction counseling explores underlying factors leading to the addiction and looks to find...(view profile to read more)

Is your addiction eating you alive? Perhaps you have received some bad news from a doctor or a loved one because of your addiction. No matter what you're experiencing, we're here to help you. You're not alone! We create a custom made system that fits your life to bring the greatest results through discovering your temperament. Call us now to see how we can help you.

Dr. Adams is a licensed Marriage Family Therapist and Psychoanalyst specializing in addiction counseling and psychotherapy. Addictive behaviors can be seen as a futile attempt to manage inner experience and painful feelings that have remained unprocessed. A psychoanalytic approach can help to explore on a deeper level, uncovering and addressing those forces inside where the symptoms are rooted. Contact Dr. Adams at (949) 244-1992 or www.SouthOCTherapist.com.

Addictions are a complicated area of work. Often the specific addiction is a symptom for much deeper discontent and shame. Along with the physical body addiction, many times the psycho-emotional issues have been present for a long time. Gaining insight and understanding to these usually very early aspects of oneself can be a useful life long tool in recovery and maintaining that recovery.

Addictions are ways people have learned to cope and regulate difficult and painful feelings. My approach is to teach you how to talk about and process the underlying emotions which fuel your addiction, and find alternative ways of coping. No matter what the addiction, it can distract you from important relationships in your life and keep you from being the person you know you can be.

Addiction is a confusing, complicated, overwhelming, and powerful force that slowly or quickly takes over all aspects of one's life. Uncover maladaptive patterns of behavior, discover root causes for these patterns, heal emotional wounds, learn new ways of living and interacting in the world, rediscover who you are and what drives you. Addiction recovery is not a solo journey. You're not alone and you don't have to do it alone.

I am an Internationally Certified Alcohol and Drug Counselor. I have a long personal and professional history with addiction, mental illness, and trauma. I specialize in counseling addiction clients who struggle with anger management, men's issues, and childhood trauma. However, that by no means a complete list of the issues I can assist you with. No matter what else you may be struggling with, we will work together to discover thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that just aren't working for you anymore. We will then get to forming new behaviors, perspectives, and strategies that will help you live a more fulfilling life!