Women’s mental health needs to be approached differently than men’s. While women have some core human experiences in common with our male counterparts, women in particular benefit from gender-specific treatment. Trauma-informed care for women is often necessary to get to the root of our suffering. In this blog, we explore more about why women’s mental health requires specialized treatment approaches.
The Unique Mental Health Needs of Women in Recovery
At Villa Kali Ma, our team of clinicians, psychotherapists, practitioners, medical doctors and case workers are experienced in the field of women’s addiction recovery. As specialists in gender-specific treatment for women, we are intimately familiar with the unique mental health needs that women in recovery have.
Most women in recovery from substance addiction have co-occurring mental health concerns, as well as underlying traumatization that needs to be healed at physical, emotional and neurobiological levels. Without addressing these factors together, the chances that women are able to achieve and sustain long term recovery are diminished.
Here are some differences between men and women that impact the focus of the gender-specific treatment we offer for women at Villa Kali Ma.
- Women are more likely to qualify for a dual diagnosis. Women who use substances daily to cope usually have serious co-occurring problems of thought, emotion and behavior that drive and interact with that substance use pattern. Women who use substances are often using substances to deal with severe depression, anxiety, or another serious mental health condition like borderline personality or bipolar. Women are more likely than men to present not only with complex post traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), but also frequently exhibit additional self-destructive behavioral disorders. Eating disorders, self-harm and suicidal tendencies are not uncommon amongst women who use substances.
- Women use substances for different reasons than men. Everyone who uses substances to the point of self-destruction is doing so in a desperate attempt to correct inner conditions of suffering. For example, substances can help people relax, or provide “liquid courage”. Women are more likely to be using substances to cope with the impacts of trauma, especially sexual trauma from childhood abuse, sexual assault, and intimate partner violence. Additionally, women are socialized to have different ways of processing emotions, meeting needs, and managing thoughts and behaviors than men. Such differences add up to having quite distinct drivers for using. Women also have different motivations for wanting to get sober and for doing the hard work of recovery.
- Women’s biology is affected differently by recovery. Although the majority of people who use substances are men, among those who do use, women are more likely to develop addiction. Tolerance and dependence to a substance develops more quickly in women’s bodies, after using a smaller amount of a substance, over a shorter period of time. Once addicted, likewise, women are subject to more intense cravings, withdrawals, and risk of relapse after achieving sobriety. This greater intensity of suffering means that women need different kinds of mental health support to succeed in recovery.
- Women’s substance use, mental health, and trauma patterning are significantly impacted by female hormones. Factors like birth control, menstruation cycles, breastfeeding, pregnancy, parenting, menopause, and stress make substance use, recovery, mental health and trauma somewhat different for women for hormonal reasons alone. These complex biochemical interactions have huge impacts of mood, behavior, the effect of substances, and the mental-emotional challenges of recovery. Women’s mental health cannot be understood as well without taking hormonal influences into account.
- Women have greater economic challenges. Women are more likely than men to be financially dependent on others, including people who have abused them in the past and even people who are abusing them now. Women are the economically more vulnerable sex, and the realities of financial survival difficulties can have huge repercussions on options for mental health treatment, ranging from work, stress, parenting, job flexibility, and more.
- Women face gender-specific barriers to treatment. In addition to the greater likelihood of women having economic struggles, single parenting responsibilities, and eldercare, women face specific stigmas and challenges about needing and getting appropriate mental health treatment. In general, women’s suffering has been both over-pathologized (as with borderline personality) and at the same time minimized and dismissed (starting with concepts of hysteria), historically speaking. Many aspects of women’s genuine suffering are not seen or validated by the mainstream. One side effect is that many women fail to recognize that need or deserve help.
How Gender-Specific Treatment Supports Deeper Healing
Gender-specific treatment settings are associated with better therapeutic outcomes for women. Women who attend gender-specific programs are more likely to succeed in recovery than women who attend mixed-gender counterpart programs of equal quality.
This is because, naturally enough, women-only settings place primary focus on the most important problems faced by women. Topics like body image and appearance, female sexuality, intimate relationships, codependency, the importance of emotions, safety, impacts of menstruation and hormones, parenting, caring for elders, sexism, navigating career and workplace as a woman, and healing from sexual trauma are front and center in the treatment conversation.
By contrast, mixed-gender treatment settings are more general, and don’t focus on the female experience of addiction specifically. Due to the historical bias to focus on men and men’s experiences of life as a default in medical settings, key pieces of the female perspective and needs can be de-emphasized, if not left out entirely, in mixed-gender treatment environments.
Also, it’s important to understand that most women find same-sex settings to feel generally safer. This fact should not be surprising, since the clear majority of women qualifying for substance abuse and mental health treatment also have significant complex trauma to cope with. Very often the worst trauma that women have is sexual trauma, originating from childhood sexual abuse, sexual assault, sexual harassment, and/or intimate partner violence. Sexual trauma topics are very hard to heal in the presence of men, for most women who have been harmed by men in the past. This may change later on in the treatment process, but in early stages it is better to be in same-sex settings for greater feelings of safety.
Finally, women are subject to social pressures in the presence of men which they do not have to face in female-only settings. Women usually require a same-sex setting to be able to fully focus internally, put themselves and their own needs first, and temporarily detach from who they are perceived to be in the eyes of men.
Creating Safe Spaces for Women to Process Trauma
It’s really important that women have access to safe spaces to address their traumatization. About half of women in America are exposed to one or more traumatic events at some point in their lifetime, according to the National Center for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Women’s traumatization is different than men’s and needs to be understood in context of women’s subjective experiences, their biology, and their socialization as the disadvantaged sex in society. Women generally experience different forms of trauma, from events taking place at different stages of life. Women are more likely undergo traumatization at a younger age, and are also more likely to experience sexual trauma.
Both sexual trauma and trauma that takes place at a young age have greater impact than other kinds of traumatic events. Complex trauma has the most negative developmental influence, affecting personality and neurobiology. While accidental injury and war-related violence are more likely to impact men, women more commonly develop a trauma diagnosis as a result of sexual assault and childhood sexual abuse. Women may be up to three times more likely than men to develop PSTD than men.
Complex trauma is linked with many mental health consequences, including but not limited to substance abuse. Panic disorders, suicidal depression, ADHD, obsessive compulsive disorder, borderline personality, eating disorders, self-harm, and several other conditions may be side effects of women’s trauma. There are also several physical health conditions that can be better healed when also addressing underlying trauma, such as auto-immune disorders, chronic pain, digestive problems, and inflammation.
Women need complete safety to be able to release long-held trauma out of their bodies. That safety can’t be faked. The true safety of a healing environment, both physically and psychologically, is perceived subconsciously.
At Villa Kali Ma, our daily structure, together with the design and stewardship of the space itself, creates a strong, safe container for healing. Our firm, compassionate program helps women feel safe to engage at every level with the treatment they need.
Experience Women-Only Treatment at Villa Kali Ma
Villa Kali Ma is an innovative, holistic treatment facility providing cutting-edge trauma treatment, mental health, and addiction recovery programs for women. Our compassionate, female-centric programs cover all the treatment needs that women have, addressing mind, body and spirit. We help women do the hard work of clearing their traumatic pasts for good, learning to be happy and healthy at last.
Villa Kali Ma offers residential inpatient, as well as outpatient treatment options. Experience several powerful evidence-based trauma therapies integrated with holistic wellness modalities. Breathwork, yoga, meditation, nutrition, massage, acupuncture, energy medicine, and shamanic journeying are examples of the offerings you can find alongside our core clinical program. EMDR, Brainspotting, Ketamine Assisted Psychotherapy, Somatic Experiencing, and Internal Family Systems Therapy are examples of the trauma-specific treatments we offer. Equine Therapy, Expressive Arts Therapy, and Mindfulness and Self-Compassion are additional modalities that women who attend our programs enjoy.
Because trauma affects so many facets of a woman’s life, we at Villa Kali Ma are ready to support each woman with a variety of approaches and levels of sensitivity. Not every therapy works for every woman, and most women experience the most benefit from a combination of approaches. We invite you to discover how different life can be, after healing trauma.
