How Do Psychotherapy and Behavioral Medicine Work Together?

When it comes to your health, the importance of your physical well-being is something that’s constantly reinforced, but your mental well-being is equally vital to a long and healthy life. In addition to the role the brain plays in your nervous system and regulating many important functions, your cognition — the ability to think, comprehend, and learn — is essential. Basic functional things like problem solving, remembering, knowledge, and judgment are all connected to your cognition.

There are also a number of ways your cognition can be impaired, including from diseases, injuries, or degenerative disorders. Managing these problems can seem insurmountable, but treatments such as behavioral medicine and psychotherapy can help. Let’s spend some time exploring how they work, and what they can do together to help you with cognitive issues.

If you live in the Norwood, Anderson, and Westside, Ohio, or Crestview Hills, Kentucky, area and you need help with cognitive disorders, the team of doctors at Riverhills Neuroscience can help.

What is psychotherapy?

Psychotherapy is the term for treating mental illnesses through therapeutic communication, allowing you to better understand your unique issues and how they affect your behavior and emotions. This can take many forms, such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), acceptance and commitment therapy, or psychoanalysis. 

Also called talk therapy, psychotherapy is frequently used to manage conditions like:

• Anxiety disorders
• Mood disorders
• Addictive disorders
• Personality disorders
• Eating disorders
• Schizophrenia

Psychotherapy sessions can help you get to the heart of the issues you’re trying to cope with, and allow you to come to grips with them and move forward, helping you resolve conflicts, reduce stress and anxiety, control unhealthy reactions, and recover from abuse.

What is behavioral medicine?

Think of behavioral medicine as a specialized form of care that focuses on the environmental, social, and psychological aspects of illnesses and diseases you deal with. 

It’s helpful in diagnosing and managing problems with a range of cognitive issues, including:

• Alzheimer’s disease
• Dementia
• Traumatic brain injury
• Parkinson’s disease
• Brain tumors
• Stroke
• Epilepsy
• Seizures 
• Movement disorders

We’ll conduct a neurological evaluation to assess your cognitive functions, examining the severity and cause of any conditions present to determine the best course of action.

What are the benefits of both psychotherapy and behavioral medicine?

Our clinical neuropsychology team can perform the evaluations and decide the best course of actions for your needs, and behavioral medicine can guide you through coping with the condition. The pain and other symptoms associated with many conditions can be managed with a combination of behavioral and psychotherapy sessions, and using aspects of both can help to aid in other neurological treatment options that may help.

Treating these conditions may take multiple disciplines to help you cope, and psychotherapy and behavioral therapy can be a potent combination to accomplish this. Make an appointment with the team at Riverhills Neuroscience today to get your evaluation and start getting the help you need.