Covina Addiction Counseling

Addiction Counseling | Covina, California

Addiction can cause feelings and behaviors that prevent you from living a happy life. However, overcoming addiction doesn’t have to be a challenge you face alone.

Instead, consider addiction counseling. Covina’s Dr. Raymond Jones has long experience in helping patients separate the compulsions that drive them from who they are as people. As a result, they can better understand their addiction and control their behavior.

Below, Dr. Jones discusses his approach to counseling. Covina patients are encouraged to read on and then to schedule a confidential conversation.

Neuroscience and Addiction Counseling

Covina patients are often surprised to learn that the complex feelings driving their behavior are actually simpler than they appear. Recent research into neuroscience suggests that we have three different “brains”:

• The base, or reptilian, brain.
• The middle, or mammalian, brain.
• The higher, or executive / spiritual, brain.

In counseling Covina patients, Dr. Jones shows how these brains drive behavior.

Our Base Brain

This set of motivations is solely focused on survival. When we are threatened, we go to the behaviors that are supposed to protect us, whether the behavior is to fight or to flee.

From an addiction counseling standpoint, Covina patients can think of the base brain as a defense against change, even when change is for the better. For example, when they try to move past their addiction, this brain reacts, threatened by a change to the life that the patient knows.  It could be a reaction to someone suggesting that they seek counseling. It could be running away from a healthy relationship.

The base brain acts in ways that we do not always perceive at the time, and as a result, we feel powerless to its whims.

Our Middle Brain

The mammalian brain allows us to feel emotions in a deep and powerful way. In counseling, Covina patients learn how the middle brain can give us strength or can make us weak.

People who are going through addiction counseling in Covina will come to understand the importance of control over this brain. They must be mindful and centered, even when the emotional brain is storming.

Our Higher Brain

This part of ourselves governs the “who am I” in each situation and lets us act in a spiritual or self-reflective way. Understanding it is very important to addiction counseling.

When Covina patients go through crisis, we see the higher brain in its truest form. These situations make some people mean and bitter, and each crisis that follows creates more negative feelings.

However, counseling also teaches Covina patients that crisis can strengthen them. Facing crisis with class and compassion allows them to become the person they want to be.

Working with Dr. Jones

Through therapy, patients explore this neurology and how to take control of it. Understanding their motivations allows them to make better decisions and to recognize that they are author of their own story. To learn more, we encourage you to contact Dr. Jones about counseling and addiction counseling. Covina residents should call (626) 332-1595 for a confidential discussion.