What Kind of Therapy Is Best for Me? Mental Health and Addiction Treatment Options

The best therapy for you isn’t necessarily the most popular one—it’s the approach that matches your specific needs, goals, and circumstances. Understanding your treatment options can help you make an informed decision about your mental health care, no matter what challenges you’re facing.

Let’s explore these therapies so you can find the best treatment for you.  

Commonly Used Therapies in Addiction and Mental Health Treatment

Some of the most common therapies include:

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT is one of the most widely researched and effective¹ forms of therapy available today. It focuses on challenging and reframing negative (and often untrue) thoughts, using thought corrections and helpful behaviors to positively affect your emotional state.

Core Focus

• Challenging and reframing negative (and often untrue) thoughts
• Using thought corrections and helpful behaviors to positively affect your emotional state

Typically Used For

• Depression
• Anxiety disorders
• Trauma
• Suicidality
• Eating disorders
• Substance use disorders

Structure and Format

• Time-limited and goal-oriented: typically 10–20 sessions
• Session length depends on condition severity, insurance coverage, and recovery progression
• Structured sessions include agenda-setting, skill practice, review, and homework planning

Special Features

• Collaborative: clients are co-investigators, not passive recipients
• Includes homework between therapy sessions
• Uses behavior-analyzing exercises, behavior tracking, and worksheets
• Widely effective across multiple mental health conditions

CBT’s structured approach makes it helpful for people who prefer clear goals and measurable progress in their treatment.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT)

DBT centers on being mindful of your thoughts, emotions, and feelings. It’s effective for both mental health problems and substance misuse. DBT was originally created to help people with borderline personality disorder (BPD)² but has since been used to address mental illness more broadly, focusing on practical skills for communication, emotional regulation, and navigating crises.

Core Focus

• Being mindful of your thoughts, emotions, and feelings
• Teaching practical skills for communication, emotional regulation, and crisis navigation
• Balancing acceptance and change strategies

Typically Used For

• Mental health concerns 
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
• Substance misuse (mindfulness techniques can help you manage cravings)
• Self-harming behaviors
• Emotional dysregulation

Structure and Format

Pretreatment (commitment phase): Build motivation and commitment to treatment, orient to DBT principles, and agree on goals

Individual therapy (weekly): Attend one-on-one sessions that focus on your specific challenges, issues that get in the way of treatment, and problems that impact your daily life, using techniques to understand behavior patterns and provide emotional support

Group skills training (weekly): Learn 4 core skill modules in a classroom format:

1. Mindfulness
2. Distress tolerance (crisis survival skills like TIPP, distraction, and radical acceptance)
3. Emotion regulation (understand emotions, reduce vulnerability with ABC PLEASE, build positive experiences)
4. Interpersonal effectiveness (ask for needs, say no, maintain self-respect using DEAR MAN, GIVE, FAST)

Phone coaching (as needed): Hold calls with your therapist between sessions for real-time skill coaching in challenging moments

Learn more about these skills and more in our article on what to expect in DBT.

Special Features

• Combines individual and group therapy components
• In-the-moment crisis coaching and skill support
• Emphasizes both acceptance and change
• 4 core skill modules

DBT’s comprehensive approach makes it effective for people who experience intense emotions and need both individual support and community practice.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is highly effective for trauma and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD),³ as it helps your brain reorganize traumatic memories using bilateral stimulation (like looking left-to-right). The act of tracking an object back and forth, or being touched on your left and right side, allows your brain to recall and process traumatic memories without such strong emotional reactions.

Core Focus

• Processing traumatic memories using bilateral stimulation
• Reducing the emotional intensity of traumatic memories
• Helping the brain naturally heal from psychological trauma

Typically Used For

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Trauma and acute stress reactions
• Anxiety disorders related to trauma
• Phobias
• Grief and loss

Structure and Format

• Typically 6–12 sessions for significant improvement
• Sessions involve bilateral stimulation (eye movements, tactile, or auditory)
• Structured, 8-phase protocol⁴
• Mental health professionals require specialized EMDR training

Special Features

• Does not require detailed discussion of traumatic events
• Can produce profound changes in relatively few sessions
• Uses the brain’s natural healing processes
• Bilateral stimulation helps integrate traumatic memories
• Designed to make trauma processing as comfortable as possible

EMDR’s unique approach makes it helpful for people who want to process trauma without extensive talk therapy or who haven’t found relief through other methods.

Motivational Interviewing (MI)

Motivational interviewing, or MI, is a technique used in talk therapy to motivate someone to change, and then to stay committed to the process. It helps you keep your goals in sight, remember how far you’ve come, and offers inspiration to keep pushing forward in your recovery journey.

Core Focus

• Motivating you to make changes and stay committed to the process
• Exploring and resolving ambivalence about change
• Strengthening personal motivation and commitment to your goals

Typically Used For

• Substance use recovery
• Chronic mental health conditions
• Medication adherence challenges⁵
• Behavioral changes (diet, exercise, lifestyle)
• Treatment engagement issues

Structure and Format

• Can be used as a standalone therapy or integrated with other approaches
• Collaborative, person-centered conversations
• Focuses on your own motivations rather than external pressure
• Session length varies depending on the treatment setting

Special Features

• Helps with medication adherence (continuing treatment even when motivation wanes)
• Effective for medication-assisted treatments⁶ such as methadone and buprenorphine
• Useful for both addiction and mental health recovery
• Non-confrontational approach that meets patients where they are
• Emphasizes autonomy and personal choice

MI’s collaborative approach makes it helpful for people who feel uncertain about change or have struggled to stick with treatment in the past.

Trauma-Informed Therapy

Trauma-informed therapy⁷ means the content and setting have been adapted specifically to trauma, and that the therapist is trauma-literate. It acknowledges the pervasive effects of trauma and aims to create a space of safety where you can begin to share your experience with a highly compassionate, competent therapist.

Core Focus

• Creating a safe, supportive therapeutic environment
• Acknowledging the widespread impact of trauma
• Adapting treatment approaches to be sensitive to trauma history

Typically Used For

• All types of trauma (childhood, adult, complex trauma)
• PTSD and trauma-related symptoms
• Anyone with a history of traumatic experiences
• Co-occurring trauma and substance use disorders
• People who’ve had negative therapy experiences

Structure and Format

• Can be integrated into various therapeutic modalities
• Emphasizes safety, trustworthiness, and collaboration
• Flexible pacing based on your comfort and readiness
• Therapist requires specialized trauma training and competency

Special Features

• Prioritizes physical and emotional safety above all else
• Recognizes trauma symptoms as adaptive responses
• Avoids re-traumatization through careful approach
• Emphasizes patient choice, control, and empowerment
• Addresses cultural, historical, and gender-based trauma

Trauma-informed therapy’s safety-first approach makes it essential for anyone whose past experiences may impact their ability to engage in traditional therapeutic settings.

Finding the Right Therapy for Your Needs

What you need help with often determines which therapy will meet your needs. Here’s how different therapies align with specific mental health conditions and concerns.

Depression

In psychotherapy for depression, CBT is often the first choice.⁸ CBT targets thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, directly addressing the cyclical nature of depression. DBT is also effective for depression⁹ as it teaches distress tolerance skills and opposite action, which means doing the opposite of an unhelpful behavior—like isolating or ruminating—to end the cycle. 

Other therapies that are effective for depression include: 

• Interpersonal therapy (IPT)
• Behavioral activation (BA)
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
• Psychodynamic therapy
• Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS)

Anxiety

CBT can be highly effective for anxiety, too. Specifically, the thought-challenging aspect of CBT can help with catastrophizing (thinking the worst possible thing will happen), emotional reasoning (I feel this way, which makes it true), and mind reading (assuming others’ thoughts).

Exposure and response prevention (ERP) is a first-line treatment for obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).¹⁰ It works by exposing you to something that triggers a compulsion or anxiety, and then you practice not following the compulsion or sitting with anxiety until it passes. This gradually reduces the anxiety these situations cause until they become less distressing and more manageable. Exposure-based strategies are also used to treat other anxiety disorders, like social anxiety and phobias.

Other therapies commonly used to treat anxiety include:

• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT)
• Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR)
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT)
• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT)
• Psychodynamic therapy
• Interpersonal therapy (IPT)
• EMDR (especially when anxiety is trauma-related)
• Virtual reality exposure therapy (for phobias, social anxiety, and PTSD)

Addiction

Many therapies can help with substance use disorders, and treatment can be tailored based on underlying factors like trauma, grief, or co-occurring mental health conditions like depression.

Therapies like CBT, DBT, and EMDR can address root causes and help you develop healthier coping skills. These approaches are especially helpful for co-occurring disorders, when someone has both a substance use disorder and a mental health condition at the same time.

Evidence-based treatments include (but aren’t limited to):

• Medication-assisted treatment (MAT)
• Contingency management
• Motivational interviewing

Peer support approaches like the 12 Steps of AA provide community support, spiritual principles, and structured recovery steps. These programs involve regular meetings, working with sponsors, and service to others in recovery.

Harm reduction strategies meet people where they are, focusing on reducing risks and improving safety rather than requiring immediate abstinence. This approach recognizes that recovery looks different for everyone and can include diverse paths to wellness.

Trauma

Trauma-focused therapy uses specialized approaches designed to help people heal from traumatic experiences. These therapies are delivered using trauma-informed principles that create safety, build trust, and empower patients throughout the healing process.

Trauma-focused therapies include (but aren’t limited to):

• EMDR
• Cognitive processing therapy (CPT)
• Prolonged exposure (PE)
• Somatic therapy
• Internal family systems (IFS)
• Narrative exposure therapy (NET)