Included Services

  • Neurofeedback (EEG Biofeedback)
  • Peripheral Biofeedback
  • Alpha-Stim & Hemi-Sync
  • Weekly Individual Therapy
  • Family Therapy
  • Interpersonal Process Group Therapy
  • Experiential Trauma Resolution
  • Interactive DBT Skills Training (Dialectical Behavioral Therapy)
  • 12 Step Facilitation Groups

Neurofeedback dramatically reduces the impulsivity alcoholics, addicts and trauma survivors experience when faced with triggers in everyday life. This reduction makes long-term, sustainable recovery possible. As importantly, clients faced with overwhelming trauma receive symptom relief from nightmares, insomnia, depression and high anxiety. It is a treatment that provides brainwave feedback to significantly reduce the underlying issues that promote relapse: depression, anxiety, trauma and intense stress. It does this with visual and sound cues to promote positive changes in the brain that reduce depressive and anxious states. The dramatic reduction in relapse rates, therefore are indirect – by reducing depression, anxiety and symptoms of trauma relapse rates are indirectly reduced.

Alpha-Stim is a very simple to use, FDA approved device that stimulates alpha activity in the brain. Alpha brain wave activity is the “feel good” brain wave activity that dramatically reduces anxious “over thinking” associated with craving and obsessing about ritualistic drug and alcohol use and abuse and related compulsive behaviors: overeating, gaming and sex. Insomnia, the form associated with the difficulty falling asleep, is also eliminated with Alpha-Stim.

Hemi-Sync is a therapeutic treatment that generates complex, multi-layered sound signals that create intensely enhanced mental, emotional and physical enhanced states. Clients report increased clarity of thought and dramatically reduced post-acute withdrawal symptoms, weeks and months following their last drugging/drinking experience.

Peripheral biofeedback is a noninvasive treatment modality aimed at enhancing psychophysiological self-regulation. Such self-regulation can be helpful in alleviating a number of symptoms, particularly those that are anxiety related including: insomnia, emotional eating, generalized anxiety, panic attacks and substance abuse.

Individual therapy is a process through which clients work one-on-one with a trained and licensed therapist—in a safe, caring, and confidential environment—to explore feelings, beliefs, or behaviors, work through challenging or traumatic memories and ultimately identify aspects of their lives that they would like to change. While there are often obvious treatment goals at the beginning of any therapeutic relationship (i.e. abstain from using heroin or binge eating) the true nature of the therapeutic relationship is a safe, intimate place where the uncomfortable emotions and patterns underlying addictive processes can be explored, revealed and discarded.

Family therapy, also sometimes referred to as couples or marriage and family therapy, or family systems therapy, is a branch of psychotherapy that works with families in intimate relationships to nurture change and development. It tends to view change in terms of the systems of interaction between family members. It emphasizes family relationships as an important factor in psychological health.

The different schools of family therapy have in common a belief that, regardless of the origin of the problem, and regardless of whether the clients consider it an “individual” or “family” issue, involving families in solutions often benefits clients. This involvement of families is commonly accomplished by their direct participation in the therapy session. The skills of the family therapist thus include the ability to influence conversations in a way that catalyzes the strengths, wisdom, and support of the wider system.

In the field’s early years, many clinicians defined the family in a narrow, traditional manner usually including parents and children. As the field has evolved, the concept of the family is more commonly defined in terms of strongly supportive, long-term roles and relationships between people who may or may not be related by blood or marriage.

The conceptual frameworks developed by family therapists, especially those of family systems theorists, have been applied to a wide range of human behavior, including organizational dynamics and the study of greatness. Honesty, self-care and the personal accountability of each family member is emphasized in family therapy at Awakenings. While seemingly simple tasks, clients and their family members find that these may be simple but not always easy activities with which to remain consistent!

Experiential Trauma Resolution – Experiential Process Groups: Psychodrama, Trauma Resolution & Sculpting – These group modalities integrate the effective treatment process in a way that is not information based. Information alone does not create change, but having a new experience can and does.

Interactive Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) is a therapy designed to help people change patterns of behavior that are not effective, such as self-harm, suicidal thinking, binge eating disorder and substance abuse. This approach works towards helping people increase their emotional and cognitive regulation by learning about the triggers that lead to reactive states and helping to assess which coping skills to apply in the sequence of events, thoughts, feelings and behaviors that lead to the undesired behavior. DBT assumes that people are doing the best that they can, but either are lacking the skills or are influenced by positive or negative reinforcement that interfere with one’s functioning.

DBT is a form of psychotherapy that was originally developed by Marsha M. Linehan, a psychology researcher at the University of Washington, to treat people with borderline personality disorder (BPD) and chronically suicidal individuals. DBT is now used in a variety of psychological treatments including treatment for traumatic brain injuries (TBI), eating disorders, and mood disorders. Recent work also suggests its effectiveness with sexual abuse survivors[4] and chemical dependency.

DBT combines standard cognitive-behavioral techniques for emotion regulation and reality-testing with concepts of distress tolerance, acceptance, and mindful awareness largely derived from Buddhist meditative practice. DBT may be the first therapy that has been experimentally demonstrated to be generally effective in treating BPD. The first randomized clinical trial of DBT showed reduced rates of suicidal gestures, psychiatric hospitalizations and treatment drop-out when compared to treatment as usual.

12 Step Facilitation prepares clients for interacting effectively in the culture of 12 step fellowship by insuring that clients have completed their 1st, 2nd and 3rd step. Additionally, clients are introduced to concepts related to Relapse Prevention and Denial Management (in an engaging manner) that are crucial components for successful management of an addictive disorder – including disordered eating and related compulsive behaviors – for a lifetime.