How Workshops Can Complement Treatment

By Wesley Gallagher

If you struggle with severe mental health issues or addiction, treatment is most likely the first and best step you can take toward recovery. Treatment offers targeted, personalized, concentrated care to help you not only get sober but also work through all of the physical, mental, and emotional issues that affect mental health and addiction. It can be a lifesaver— literally.

Once you’ve been through treatment, though, you may feel uncertain about being out on your own, heading back into the routine of everyday life. It can be difficult to return to the status quo after spending time away getting well, which is why it’s important to establish a new status quo—one that continues to reinforce what you learned in treatment.

Fortunately, Meadows Behavioral Healthcare’s services don’t just end with treatment. At Rio Retreat Center, we offer a full slate of workshops on a wide range of topics. They are a great way for those who have gone through treatment to continue on the path to recovery by maintaining mental and emotional wellbeing. They’re also a great option for people who may struggle with mental health issues or unresolved trauma but don’t need treatment.

Our Workshops Support Positive Mental Health

According to the website HelpGuide, your mental health influences everything in your daily life, from how you think and feel to how you act and respond to different situations. It affects your ability to deal with stress, maintain relationships and overcome hardships and setbacks. For those in recovery, it’s even more important to establish a maintenance routine for your mental health to make sure you stay on track.

Good mental health isn’t just an absence of mental health problems—it’s the presence of positive mental health characteristics.

Good mental health means having a sense of contentment and an ability to enjoy life, being capable of handling stress and overcoming adversity, having a sense of purpose in life and maintaining self-confidence and self-esteem.

Essentially, the more you take care of your mental health, the more your mental health will take care of you. If you put in the time and energy to maintain solid mental health, you’ll be able to manage better when life throws you curveballs. The more stable your mental health is, the more likely you’ll be to get through setbacks in your recovery. Armed with the tools necessary to stay healthy, you’ll be set up for long-term success.

Our Workshops Support the Progress You’ve Already Made

Enter Rio Retreat’s workshops: These five-day intensives are led by professionals with specific expertise in their workshop topic who work exclusively in the workshop format. Each workshop is meant to address a specific aspect of mental health, so you can choose which one resonates most with you and your particular struggles. Workshops are offered in three categories: emotional trauma, relationships and personal growth.

Here’s a sampling of workshop topics:

• Survivors I and Survivors II focus on healing childhood emotional trauma. If you’ve been through treatment at Rio, you may have gone through Survivors I. Survivors II is a continuation, while some people choose to return to the Survivors I workshop as a helpful refresher.
• Mending Heartwounds helps bring closure and healing to ungrieved, forgotten, or hidden loss.
• Couples Bootcamp, offered monthly at Rio Retreat, helps couples explore and heal from relational difficulties in a safe environment.
• Mastering Boundaries is a 3-day equine experience that uses Somatic Experiencing techniques to support individuals in developing the “felt sense” of boundaries.
• THRIVE helps individuals get to the next level of recovery by engaging in an exploration that will allow you to engage more fully and deeply with yourself and others.
• The Betrayal Bond, developed under the guidance of industry expert and Meadows Senior Fellow Dr. Patrick Carnes, is designed to help participants free themselves and recover from exploitive relationships, processes, and situations.

In addition to these and other workshops, we offer private intensives for people who require a higher level of confidentiality, as well as professional development workshops for mental health and addiction specialists. More information on our workshops can be found here or view our full 2020 workshop schedule.

Find the Support You Need for Your Recovery Journey

It’s important to note that if you are currently struggling with an active addiction, engaging in self-harm, having heavy suicidal ideation, or have had recent suicidal behavior, then inpatient treatment or an intensive outpatient program is probably the right fit. It’s important to seek the level of care that’s appropriate for your current circumstance, and workshops are not meant to be an alternative to treatment. Once you’ve been through treatment, these workshops will be a great way to maintain recovery.

Whether you’re at the beginning of your journey of recovery or several years in, workshops are the perfect way to enhance and maintain good mental health. Don’t do recovery alone—we’re here to help every step of the way. Contact us today for more information.