Addiction recovery can often be a very demanding, challenging, or overwhelming process. Because of this, students at Clearview may experience recovery burnout. Recovery burnout is natural, and staying excited about recovery is not always easy. However, there are healthy ways to overcome this burnout. It is important to first understand how burnout is affecting the student since everyone experiences this feeling in different ways. From there, engaging in new activities or with new groups to find healthy ways to overcome burnout is possible.
At Clearview Horizon Girls Academy, students are given multiple opportunities to overcome their recovery burnout. This may look like joining different workshops with a new group of students or engaging in different practices at the academy to invite new and exciting experiences. Another huge part of overcoming recovery burnout with the academy is keeping open and honest communication with the staff so that they fully understand where the burnout is stemming from in order to appropriately guide students through this challenge.
What Is Recovery Burnout?
Burnout is a normal thing that can happen to anyone in their lives. Sometimes, people experience burnout in work or academics. Typically, burnout occurs because there is too much stress put on the person or the individual does not feel like their progress amounts to anything. Stagnancy is a significant reason for burnout. More specifically, there are two kinds of burnout: circumstantial and existential.
Circumstantial burnout can be described as stagnancy and not seeing progress amount to anything, even if it is. This kind of burnout is typically fixed through changing routines or making frequent adjustments in order to find a breakthrough. Existential burnout, on the other hand, is on the more severe end of burnout that begins to affect one’s mental health. Individuals may experience anxiety or depression due to their burnout.
In recovery, this is no different. Those in treatment may feel bored or stagnant in their programs and start to walk through the motions of their recovery. They may feel tired with their program because it’s the same routine over and over again. On the other end of recovery burnout, one may begin to develop symptoms and signs of depression and/or anxiety. In these cases, it is vital to find healthy coping mechanisms and different pathways of healing to sustain recovery goals while also overcoming these new symptoms.
How Can Recovery Burnout Look Different Across Students?
Because recovery burnout can fall into two different categories, it is not uncommon for students at Clearview Horizon to experience the same thing. Students may experience more circumstantial burnout, where they feel bored with their recovery or can’t see their progress amounting to anything. However, some students may begin to feel depressed or stressed due to burnout. When this occurs, it is crucial for students to be open and honest with the staff at Clearview Horizon Girls Academy in order to make a plan moving forward.
At Clearview Horizon Girls Academy, healing from addiction and mental health are equally important to one another. It is not uncommon for mental health disorders to co-exist with addiction, even if these symptoms arise due to recovery burnout.
Methods of Overcoming Recovery Burnout With Clearview
Overcoming recovery burnout is possible at Clearview Horizon Girls Academy. When burnout hits students, whether it be circumstantial or existential, treatment plans are adjusted to invite more excitement into the recovery journey while encouraging healthy coping mechanisms to overcome any mental health disorder symptoms.
Two of the main ways of overcoming recovery burnout at Clearview are introducing the students to new groups in clinical and holistic therapy sessions and helping them invite more peace into their lives with equine and art therapies.
Workshops and Group-Oriented Sessions at Clearview
Group-oriented therapy sessions and workshops can be done in clinical and holistic ways. Clinically, these are mainly talk therapy sessions where students verbally express themselves, their experiences, and their recovery burnout in a judgment-free environment. Here, students can build community with one another and resist self-isolation when experiencing any form of recovery burnout.
Group work and community building are important not only to resist self-isolation but to show each other that they are not alone. Recovery burnout is normal, and it should not be something that makes students quit their treatment or be something that they feel ashamed about. These group therapy sessions are there to introduce students to each other in new ways and build bonds deeper than before.
Equine Therapy and Art Therapy at Clearview
While equine therapy and art therapy may be done in group settings, much of this work is accomplished on the individual level. In art therapy, students learn to communicate their thoughts and emotions by creative and non-verbal means. This is a safe outlet for students to turn to that promotes healthy coping mechanisms as well as progressive healing internally.
Equine therapy is completed in a supervised setting with a mental health professional. Here, students work with their horses to improve impulse control, emotion and mood regulation, problem-solving skills, independence, self-actualization, responsibility, and interpersonal relationships, among many other things. Negative thoughts and emotions are brushed aside in equine therapy, and students learn how to process and redirect this negativity into something positive with their animal companions.
Both art and equine therapy can be beneficial for recovery burnout. This is because holistic care shows students that recovery does not have to be strictly clinical. Recovery can be exciting, fun, and peaceful. Both therapies introduce students to new coping skills they can use long-term. When coping with mental health disorders due to recovery burnout, these therapies are beneficial in promoting self-exploration, self-understanding, and inner peace.
Here at Clearview Horizon Girls Academy, we understand that recovery is not linear. Something that may seemingly “derail” recovery is recovery burnout. Recovery burnout can be circumstantial or existential, meaning this burnout can either cause students to feel bored with their recovery or lead to students developing depression or anxiety. However, recovery burnout is normal, and we provide outlets for students to navigate their recovery burnout in healthy ways. Group-oriented therapy, equine therapy, and art therapy are three services we offer to help students understand their burnout, build community, invite peace, and develop healthy coping mechanisms. To learn more about recovery burnout and healing mechanisms, please call us at 866-584-4788.
