Imagine a place tucked away in the peaceful valley of Atlanta’s northern suburbs guiding you to understand that dealing with mental health issues isn’t as complicated as you once thought. The Southern Live Oak Wellness Partial Hospitalization for Mental Health Treatment program was designed with you in mind to help reduce the fragmentation that plagues the functional progress of mental health. We created a bridge between yourself and results you feel good about. At Southern Live Oak Wellness you will discover a clearer path built on light and results.
Our specialized team is focused on treating challenging and complex presentations of mental illness, including co-occurring disorders. Within our program, you are encouraged to hear your truth and feel a portion of yourself you did not believe possible. PHP is specifically designed to teach you how to access that truth within yourself. Discover these top 10 reasons to consider Partial Hospitalization for Mental Health at Southern Live Oak Wellness.
What is Partial Hospitalization for Mental Health and Why is it Different?
You can think of a PHP program as a “halfway house” for traditional outpatient therapy – a structured and intensive level of care, but not as intensive as an inpatient hospital where you remain on the program all day for days or weeks on end, and not as light as the weekly therapy sessions where one might meet with a therapist, attend a group once a week, and go on about with a commitment to do one’s homework and communicate with your loved ones if problems arise.
A day program, depending on the facility, could be a place where you can get individual, group, or family therapy, take part in medication management, and psycho-education, and spend hours discussing your illness and lab results with a psychiatrist.
At Southern Live Oak Wellness, our program (PHP) is meant to accomplish exactly this. While it’s structured and intense enough to help you tackle your unique obstacles, you have the chance to return home every night of the week, for 3-5 days at a time, whether that be for several weeks or months.
Top Reasons to Consider Partial Hospitalization for Mental Health Treatment
Though everyone’s situation is different, here are just a few reasons PHP could be the right fit for you:
- Structured Support System: If standard outpatient therapy doesn’t provide enough structure and structure for you to remain on the road to recovery, a PHP structure provides extra support. A structured environment keeps you on track for recovery.
- Balance Between Treatment And Life Outside Of Treatment: A PHP is ideal than inpatient treatment because you go home each night. This helps to maintain normalcy and lets you continue to attend to family members, kids, work, and basic needs.
- Improved Social Engagement: PHPs feature group therapy sessions, which can be quite helpful. This type of setting is designed as a place where members can receive interaction from people in the same boat, creating more of a communal sense altogether and lessening the sense of feeling alone. The act of sharing experiences with others who understand can help as well.
- Building Healthy Coping Strategies: One of the key goals of PHP is helping you build a coping strategy toolbox. Teaching you how to relax, practice mindfulness, and apply concepts known as CBT can help you better tolerate triggers and manage your day-to-day emotional health.
- Medication Management and Monitoring: With medication management support from a psychiatrist you are most likely completing the ongoing individual counseling work you were assigned and are continuing to take medication, and manage doses and side effects, as necessary.
- Coming Out of Inpatient Care: A PHP can help patients reintegrate into independent living if they’ve come out of inpatient hospitalization. This kind of bridging therapeutic environment eases the transition while offering ongoing support and, as a result, avoiding relapse.
- Family involvement: some PHPs offer family therapy sessions, helping you and your family learn how to better communicate and offer support while educating your loved ones about your addiction and recovery process.
- Maintaining independence: PHPs are more autonomous than inpatient programs, where you have greater control over your daily schedule and decision-making. This allows you to practice taking care of your mental health while still retaining an intensive support network.
- Treatment for the Whole Person: PHPs care for more than your mental health; they care about you as a whole person with physical, emotional, and social needs as well. This helps make sure all areas of your life can be nurtured while you recover.
- Beyond Therapy Sessions: A Holistic Approach to Healing: Unlike standard talk therapy you may have had, we go beyond the therapy couch to provide a comprehensive set of evidence-based treatment modalities that feed your body, mind, and spirit as you progress in treatment. Our therapists will assist you in building a toolbox of skills tailored to your specific pain points, including a variety of relaxation techniques, including deep breathing exercises, progressive muscle relaxation training, mindfulness exercises to foster calm and grounded presence, and identification and re-framing of unhelpful thoughts that contribute to feelings of distress. You will also engage in evidence-based therapies such as Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT).
At Southern Live Oak Wellness, you will also have access to a wide variety of complementary therapies available during the day. Think about what it might be like to have music therapy. While engaging in music creation exercises or listening exercises, you would learn to regulate your emotions and develop your ability to express your feelings through artistic expression. Art therapy could be one alternative for you to allow you to express your emotions artistically. Maybe yoga or other activities would help your recovery process by having physical exercise to improve your physical well-being and unity between your mind and body.
Finding Strength Through Shared Experiences
This aspect of our PHP program has been particularly powerful because it allows participants to find togetherness with others who are also trying to overcome shame and vulnerability to be vulnerable in front of others. Group therapy allows you to sit with others who are experiencing what you’re going through and helps alleviate the isolation that can sometimes keep you stuck.
When you have anxiety, depression, or other struggles related to your mental health, you might have trouble effectively managing emotions or behaviors individually. Imagine in a group setting you each begin to unravel what works for you and what doesn’t, cheering each other on as you talk about your process with vulnerability. As you share and listen to the personal struggles of others in the group, you’re able to relate but also gain insight into coping strategies that could assist you as you move through your journey to wholeness.
Tailored to Your Needs: A Personalized Approach to Recovery
There is not a patient who enters through our doors here at Southern Live Oak Wellness who will ever say: ‘Give me the comprehensive, cookie-cutter model of care.’ We understand that each patient is a unique individual and has distinct mental health needs. Our first order of business is listening and then constructing an individualized care plan specifically designed for you. This may require prescription medications as part of a larger recovery effort. Our team of prescribing psychiatrists will work with you to find a combination of medications that will help you manage your symptoms and boost your quality of life.
A Stepping Stone or a Sanctuary: Your Choice
Our PHP can, in fact, be a useful part of that journey at any point: for example, fresh off of inpatient hospitalization. Such a transition back to living independently can be made much easier by a PHP. In this type of situation, the already structured schedule, and the availability of continued support, can make reintegrating into the formerly unstructured world of independent living much easier, and hopefully reduce the chances of relapse.
Conversely, maybe the intensity of traditional outpatient therapy isn’t sufficient – you might need the intensity of PHP to get a handle on your coping issues and gain a skill set to manage these with, for instance, dialectical behavior training.
A Journey of Hope and Empowerment
The philosophy of Southern Live Oak Wellness is fully geared towards making you feel empowered in your recovery journey, in other words, to give you the power of being an active participant in your healing, not as a passive consumer of treatment.
We encourage you to think of Partial Hospitalization for Mental Health as the possibility of forming a new story – what challenges can you face in your life with renewed self-esteem, improved resilience, and new useful skills? We can be the port in the storm on your journey to a brighter day.
Nobody is fighting this battle by themselves. Contact us today to find out how our program could give you greater control over your mental health. We can’t wait to hear from you!