Relapse Prevention Therapy is a type of cognitive-behavioral therapy. It primarily treats addiction and substance abuse but also treats mental health disorders like depression, OCD and more. According to a foundational study on Relapse Prevention (RP), the therapy “seeks to identify high-risk situations in which an individual is vulnerable to relapse and to use both cognitive and behavioral coping strategies to prevent future relapses in similar situations”

Patients will participate in Relapse Prevention Groups throughout their inpatient stay, using evidence-based interventions developed by Terence Gorski as well as Marlatt and Gordon. These sessions are experiential as well as dialectical, and provide patients with the necessary practical tools to implement in treatment, as well as for post discharge.

Arha has implemented the Gorski-Cenaps model of Relapse Prevention as the main approach for this specific modality and this encompasses 9 basic principles.  Each principle is complimented with a procedure or clinical technique that can be used to operationalize that principle with patients:

* Principle 1: Self-regulation is operationalized with a procedure for physical, psychological, and social stabilization;

* Principle 2 : Integration is operationalized by the technique of self- assessment;

* Principle 3 : Understanding is operationalized by a relapse education procedure;

* Principle 4 : Self-Knowledge is operationalized with a procedure of relapse warning-sign identification

* Principle 5: Coping skills is operationalized through a procedure of warning-sign management;

* Principle 6 : Change is operationalized in a procedure for reviewing the recovery plan;

* Principle 7 : Awareness is operationalized by a procedure of inventory  training;

* Principle 8 :Support operationalized by the involvement of significant others.

* Principle 9 : is Maintenance, which is operationalized by a comprehensive follow-up plan

All patients at Arha will be discharged with a Relapse Prevention Plan (Recovery Plan) derived from a process of collaborative work with the group, therapists and family involvement.

A relapse prevention plan is a vital tool for anyone in recovery. Having a plan helps you recognize your own personal behaviors that may point to relapse in the future. It also outlines ways to combat those behaviors and get back on track.

A relapse prevention plan is a written document a patient creates with the treatment team and shares with their support group. The plan offers a course of action for responding to triggers and cravings.
Relapse usually is not a spur-of-the-moment event. Typically, it is a three- part process, including:

* Emotional relapse
* Mental relapse
* Physical relapse

With a relapse prevention plan, it is possible to acknowledge and act upon certain feelings and events, in turn avoiding a physical relapse (which is the stage when someone returns to drug or alcohol use).