At Discovery Point Retreat, we plan enjoyable activities and outings as a component of your addiction recovery treatment. Each recreational therapy session or team-based activity may seem like play, but it is designed by your therapist to also help you work past barriers presented in your talk therapy sessions. At the same time, you rebuild your mental, emotional and physical health.
Recreational therapy can be traced to the 1850s when Florence Nightingale introduced the idea of using recreation to improve the human condition. Core areas addressed by recreation therapy include your physical, cognitive, social, emotional and spiritual well-being. Recreational therapy puts a heavy focus on the arts, including music and crafting projects.
Our recreational therapy program at Discovery Point Retreat helps you come out of the isolation of your substance abuse. You relearn social skills and how to enjoy yourself. You also learn to replace your lifestyle of drug use and recovery treatments with fun activities that you enjoy. At its most basic, this therapy takes you from a life of dormancy into one of participation.
We offer a wide variety of activities in recreational therapy. With our picturesque location in the Texas countryside, you’re able to participate in outdoor activities like equine therapy, hiking and fishing. Since our rehab center is close to Dallas, we also take coordinated sightseeing trips into the city.
While many activities in recreational therapy seem more like fun and games than therapy, you still achieve individual goals as part of each session. Your recreation therapist uses these methods to reduce your depression, anxiety and stress. You replace those feelings with greater confidence and self-esteem as you learn to socialize within your community. Other benefits include feeling healthier from the physical activity and mental engagement each session requires.
As part of your rehab program, your therapist sets goals for your recreational therapy sessions and helps you achieve them as part of the process used in designing the therapy. This process starts with assessing your unique needs and capabilities. It includes planning the therapy, engaging in the session’s activity and evaluating your progress at the end of the session.
Studies show recreational therapy provides positive physical and mental health benefits. You gain the best results when using recreation within a complete program that includes other therapies such as with cognitive behavioral therapy and individual counseling. Overall benefits include:
Through your activities and engagement with other people, you build self-esteem and confidence in your capabilities. Addiction may have taken you out of team-based scenarios and cooperative efforts for a long time and eroded your confidence in social situations. But with a recreational therapy program, you relearn how to socialize, play, enjoy relationships and work with others toward common goals.