When it comes to care, you are always an individual. Even if the sum of your diagnosis matches the sum of someone else’s, your path to wellness will be built by aligning your needs, goals, and aids around your identity – and no human being’s journey is the same. That’s why at Southern Live Oak Wellness, we offer a diverse range of services to meet your evolving needs through your own unique recovery. One of our most prominent and beneficial offerings is our Partial Hospitalization Program, which we will explore in detail in this blog, demonstrating its power to create a lasting impact on your mental health journey.
Understanding Partial Hospitalization Programs
A Partial Hospitalization Program provides a structured program of mental health support that’s more intensive than typical outpatient therapy but much less intensive than a mental health inpatient hospitalization, providing robust support during the day, while allowing a person to return home at night. These types of programs are especially beneficial for people in need of robust support but who don’t need around-the-clock supervision.
Southern Live Oak Wellness PHP service provides an integrated evidence-based, medical management and complementary treatment program to enhance recovery focused on mental health. Our customized services include Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR), brain mapping, medication stabilization, Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), Alpha-Stim, and complementary therapies.
Benefits of a Partial Hospitalization Program
Personalized Treatment Plans
One of the main advantages of offering a PHP is that you have the opportunity to tailor a treatment plan to a client’s needs. Different mental health conditions present themselves differently in people. Similarly, a treatment plan should be tailored accordingly. In a PHP, you will receive a treatment plan unique to their symptoms, mental health challenges, and wellness goals. With a tailored plan, treatment becomes more effective and leads to greater positive outcomes.
Comprehensive Care
A partial hospitalization program is a mental health treatment environment that incorporates all the components necessary to foster long-term recovery. Southern Live Oak Wellness’s PHP consists of a multitude of therapies and services that enable our clients to live a balanced and fulfilling life.
Cognitive-behavioral therapy helps clients recognize and rectify their negative thought patterns and the consequences of such patterns. We also incorporate dialectical behavioral therapy to assist clients with processing and experiencing their emotions in a manner that leads to acceptance, regulates intense emotions, and teaches and practices self-soothing techniques to cope with periods of distress. Similarly, we use eye movement desensitization and reprocessing to reprocess their traumatic memories in order to find balance and well-being. Additionally, brain mapping is used to help understand and learn about your brain. The Partial Hospitalization Program at Southern Live Oak Wellness is designed to move our clients back toward wholeness by addressing all aspects of their functioning.
Structured Environment
For those with mental health problems, the structure brings stability and predictability, which can be reassuring and help mitigate anxiety. Our PHP enables clients to follow a daily schedule, which comprises a multitude of therapeutic offerings, including group therapy sessions, medication management, and complementary therapies. Rather than just adhering to some generalized guide to supporting mental health, structure adds important structure and consistency to the day, which can help aid recovery and produce healthy, workable routines.
Intensive Support
Another benefit of PHPs is that they’re able to provide an intensive level of support, which is crucial for people with severe or complex mental health conditions. At Southern Live Oak Wellness, our PHP includes a team of mental health professionals, including psychiatrists, therapists, and nurses. This multi-disciplinary team works with clients to help monitor progress, adjust therapy and medication plans as necessary, and provide ongoing support. PHPs tend to be more intensive than other outpatient settings, which makes sense in the engagement of very sick or disabled individuals.
Medication Management
For many, medication is a necessary tool to manage their mental health conditions, and this is true at our Partial Hospitalization Program, where medication stabilization and management are an important part of treatment. Our psychiatrist provides onsite coverage 40 hours a week in order to monitor and adjust dosages, address any issues that might come up with side effects, and provide medication education.
Flexibility and Independence
Another key aspect of a Partial Hospitalization Program is the perception of both controlled independence and structured support that taking part in treatment offered clients. By going to the program during the day and returning home at the end of the day, individuals could implement new tools that they were learning in treatment at home and in their ongoing lives. This afforded clients a ‘real world’ experience and context without having to crisis immediately into residential care.
Access to Complementary Therapies
Complementary therapies can help boost the effectiveness of traditional mental health treatments by promoting feelings of relaxation; reducing the symptoms of anxiety and depression; and improving overall well-being. Some of the complementary therapies that are part of our PHP at Southern Live Oak Wellness include nutrition, outdoor recreation, Reiki, red light therapy, animal-assisted therapy, life skills training, and brain-based music therapy. Each of these complementary therapies helps our clients with adjunctive treatments to aid in their recovery while improving their overall quality of life.
Building a Support Network
Social support is an essential component of mental health recovery. By participating in a PHP, clients have the opportunity to develop a peer network of people who can empathize because they’re facing similar challenges. Through group therapy, psychotherapy sessions, and special group excursions, clients have the opportunity to become members of a group and are encouraged to get to know others in the group. Developing new peer relationships can help clients feel less lonely, and help them feel supported when they are struggling. Clients can also develop relationships with their treatment team, who can become mentors in their recovery.
Skills Development
One major emphasis in PHP is helping clients acquire tools for managing their symptoms and stressors associated with their mental illness, as well as enhanced coping skills to face everyday life challenges and interactions. Cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) and dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), for instance, help clients learn techniques for coping with stress and managing daily interpersonal relationships.
Our complementary therapies like life skills offer clients the opportunity to learn skills needed for independent living, such as money management, time management, and healthy cooking. These skills allow clients to be more empowered to face all the challenges that may come prior to, during, and after the program.
Transition Support
Transitioning from this level of treatment to everyday life can be daunting so a meaningful step-down is critical. The daily routine of a PHP is often a transitional period, offering just what a person needs to slowly reduce their level of care as they acclimate to doing things on their own. Sometimes, they will participate in IOP or even regular outpatient treatment (often called ‘continuing care’). Southern Live Oak Wellness provides clients with these important step-down options to reduce their risk of relapse. After a client completes the programming, they transition into our alumni program to continue their recovery.
Evidence-Based Therapies at Southern Live Oak Wellness
At Southern Live Oak Wellness, we offer a wide range of evidence-based therapies to our Partial Hospitalization Program, and we choose these treatments for a reason. Together, these therapies cover a wide range of client needs to support mental health recovery.
- Cognitive-Behavioral therapy (CBT): A rock-solid component of our PHP program is Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy. CBT as a psychological intervention helps individuals identify and eliminate negative or dysfunctional thoughts, behaviors, and emotions. Such maladaptive thoughts or behaviors are viewed as driving those negative moods and becoming ingrained patterns that influence a person’s actions and reactions towards others and life in general. CBT is effective for such conditions as depression, anxiety, and PTSD.
- Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT): Founded by Marsha Linehan of the University of Washington, dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) primarily focuses on teaching skills for emotion regulation and improving one’s interpersonal interactions. A skills-based approach that is rooted in teachings of mindfulness and acceptance, DBT helps clients better cope with distress and enhance interpersonal relationships. Beneficial primarily for those with a borderline personality disorder, engaging in self-harm, or exhibiting chronic suicidal ideation.
- Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR): EMDR is a brand of therapy designed to treat trauma and other sources of distress that is a combination of cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), exposure therapy, and psychodynamic approaches. The key aspect of EMDR is that a therapist, working with the client’s input, identifies and processes (‘reattaches’) a traumatic memory so that it no longer constantly interferes with functioning. EMDR has proven effective for the treatment of PTSD, as well as for the treatment of anxiety disorders and phobias.
- Brain Mapping: A QEEG brain map is a diagnostic test used to obtain patterns of brainwave activity that provide essential information about brain-based disorders such as anxiety and depression. Our treatment team can identify specific regions of the brain that are relevant in creating symptoms by using brain mapping to create more focused and individualized treatment plans.
- Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS): uses magnetic fields produced by an electromagnetic coil to stimulate nerve cells in the brain. This stimulation alleviates the symptoms of depression and is usually offered to clients who have not responded to other depression treatments. TMS is offered at all levels of our care, ensuring that clients have access to cutting-edge treatment, by taking place on an inpatient and outpatient basis.
- Alpha-Stim treats pain, anxiety, insomnia, and depression by the application of micro-current electrical therapy to the brain and inducing an alpha brainwave – a state of relaxation that reduces symptoms. Alpha-Stim is non-invasive, has no long-term side effects; no risk of substance abuse; no adverse drug interactions; and it does not affect the performance of any other drugs. As a safe and effective complementary treatment for mental health and chronic pain, an increasing number of hospitals and medical practitioners have embraced Alpha-Stim.
Complementary Therapies for Holistic Recovery
Complementary therapies are a cornerstone of our Partial Hospitalization Program and synergize with traditional treatment to help with recovery. The Southern Live Oak complementary therapies suite is dedicated to assisting clients to better their well-being and relax.
For example, nutrition plays an important role in our mental health. Our nutrition therapy helps people identify the relationship between diet and mental health as well as guides them on them how to keep a proper diet to support these mental health. We also focus on outdoor activities, which can reduce stress and improve mood as well as develop physical health. Reiki, red light therapy, animal-assisted therapy, music therapy, and life skills training are other examples of complementary therapies we use.
Is a Partial Hospitalization Program Right for You?
The clear benefits of attending a Partial Hospitalization Program make the difference in recovery for many people Our PHP at Southern Live Oak Wellness provides our clients with a deep and structured stepping stone on their journey toward mental health recovery while they tend to their personal and occupational responsibilities.
Our comprehensive, client-centered approach to care delivers highly intensive support for a shorter span of time than traditional residential care, while maintaining our clients’ privacy and freedoms. Unlike residential care, Southern Live Oak Wellness’s PHP is a great option for clients who benefit from a more flexible schedule and desire the privacy of their own homes and community during recovery. It also allows clients to formulate their vision for recovery while they embark on their new path.
With a holistic and evidence-based combination of clinical psychiatry and psychotherapy, group therapies, medication management, and complementary therapies, the benefits of PHP at Southern Live Oak Wellness address the full scope of mental health and help clients develop and cultivate the tools for resilience and lasting recovery. For more information on our Partial Hospitalization Program, reach out to our staff today!
