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The Integrated Approach to Dual Diagnosis Treatment

Individuals suffering from depression are likely to adopt an addiction. It may be alcoholism where they're drowning their sorrows in a bottle, nicotine addiction as they hoped to puff away their sadness and misery in a cloud of smoke, or drug abuse because they want to kill their emotional pain through abusing a variety of drugs, illegal or otherwise. Some people, though, turn to abusing their body by putting their health at risk with their tendency towards overeating when they're feeling down in the dumps or with their bad habit of overloading their system with sugar to "feel better."

Sadly, continued dependence on these bad habits or vices will only keep them imprisoned within a state of deep depression. As a result, they often see little chance of getting out of the Dark Hole their mind is currently buried deep. This feeling of hopelessness further pushes them into a deeper depression. It's actually a cycle that only a wake-up call from a caring friend, a close family member, or a mental health professional can put an end to by denying the depressed individual any opportunity to use alcohol, nicotine, drugs or food as emotional anchors.

Stopping the cycle means that loved ones are taking steps towards effective intervention. At this point, mental health professionals would step in and take care of the rehabilitation of the individual as well as the application of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat clinical depression. When a person with a mental or emotional problem has also become an addict or alcoholic, that person is given a Dual Diagnosis by the psychiatrist. Furthermore, many mental health experts recommend an integrated approach to a Dual Diagnosis treatment.

For an integrated treatment program to be effective, several mental health professionals must work together in providing a combination of treatments that include counseling, therapy, and pharmacology. Persons diagnosed with a bipolar disorder or any other mental illness must take medication to balance their hormone levels and allow their mental faculties to function normally. Thus, an integrated approach to a dual diagnosis treatment often has a comprehensive scope in its composition of treatment methods. For example, afflicted individuals are also taught how to more effectively deal with stress, how to manage their social networks, and how to cope with the demands of their job.

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