Outpatient Services

Individuals who are relatively satisfied with their lives, yet are faced with specific events or relationships that require professional guidance will enroll in Outpatient Treatment. These counseling programs tend to be helpful to those who require occasional therapy. Outpatient Treatment allows individuals to work on a variety of personal or relationship issues while keeping up with day-to-day activities. 

Our Outpatient Treatment Programs consist of group or individual therapy sessions. Individual therapy is a one-on-one session with a counselor and is helpful when insight into specific events or situations is required. Group therapy is an efficient way to work through past issues that may inhibit change or for someone who is experiencing an event that is life changing. 

Establishing a Therapeutic Relationship

Psychotherapeutic relationships may take some time to establish. Therapy sessions must ultimately be effective for the client but may initially prove to be erratic, inconsistent, and fraught with resistance. Therapy's goal is to assist the client to resolve difficult situations by becoming aware of current feelings, actions and how various events of their life are related. 

Clients also want to gain clarity into certain feeling, actions and beliefs. What they want most from therapy is relief from current problems and insight into how to prevent them. Once established they can go about making the necessary changes to create a more satisfying life. 

Insight is the objective of psychotherapy.  Individuals know when insight happens. Insight is not like intellectual learning. It is a sudden feeling of clarity, sanity, hope, decisiveness, and energy. This personal healing is what psychotherapy offers. When emotions are felt and awareness occurs the person feels better; they begin to function better. Psychotherapy and How it Works helps one know what to expect, allowing them to benefit more effectively from the therapeutic process. 

Mental Health problems addressed in the outpatient programs are

• Mental health problems such as:
  Feelings of hurting self or others, cutting or mutilation, depression, anxiety, anger, grief, bi-polar disorder, schizophrenia, stress or related conditions such as PTSD.  Symptoms such as tearfulness, racing thoughts, irritability and seeing or hearing things that do not exist in reality are symptoms of several mental health problems.
• Medical health problems with accompanying mental health problems such as:
  Dialysis, diabetes, hypertension, seizures, liver problems, organ transplant.  Symptoms that accompany these problems can be depression, anxiety, sleepiness, anger, fear and hopelessness.
• Potentially life threatening disease with accompanying mental health problems such as:
  Cancer, diabetes, Parkinson's Disease, cardiovascular disease, hypertension, stroke, epilepsy, neurological disorders.  Symptoms that accompany these problems are similar to those of medical health issues.
• Chronic or disabling pain.  Symptoms that accompany pain are varied, but can be anger, fear and disbelief.

Outpatient Treatment Programs Include

Individual Therapy - adult and adolescent - assists individuals with personal problems, crises, and life's difficulties in a one-on-one therapy setting. Counseling services are oriented toward short-term interventions designed to help individuals develop a personal understanding to the source and treatment of their specific problems.

Individual counseling addresses a variety of problems and concerns which may include depression, anxieties and fears, self-esteem, sexual assault trauma, interpersonal conflicts, career issues, aging, addictions, eating disorders, stress management, family conflicts, physical/emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and other distressing conditions.

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Family Therapy - The aim is for family members to understand and accept their individual responsibility in the emotional functioning of the family unit. By learning to recognize the emotional relationship patterns and how anxiety is handled in the family, individual family members can manage themselves in more functional ways. Relationships change and symptoms decrease as family members improve their emotional functioning.

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Couples Therapy - Maintaining a loving relationship is no easy task. Schedules and time may complicate communication.  Couples therapy helps partners learn how to manage conflict, avoid pitfalls, create a shared vision, and work together as partners.

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Addictions Counseling and Eating Disorders - Substance abuse and eating disorders are considered medical diseases because of how they affect the entire body. The crippling affects of the diseases include a gradual inability to function normally in every area of a person's life. Addictions affect people, families, communities, and nations and destroy millions of lives every year. They are progressive diseases that worsen over time. They won't get better if ignored. 

Addictions can progress from mild to severe and recovery requires a complete life-style change. Everything that interferes with sobriety and/or abstinence, including family members in some cases, must be changed before recovery can be successful.  

Vocational Evaluation and Coaching - Focusing on the inherent nature and gifts of the individual, and finding a vocation that involves these strengths creates success and happiness in the individual. This means that the work comes naturally and has meaning.  It also means that work rewards the value system that one has developed. . 

One-on-one or group counseling is valuable in helping individuals explore natural gifts related to occupation or transition to a field of interest. It strengthens confidence, produces new understandings, develops decision making, and provides a greater ability to move forward towards a fulfilling career.

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Assessment and Evaluation - Some dealing with a life crisis or a mental illness may require a psychiatric evaluation to help identify problems playing a role in their condition. Clients are initially referred to the Social Worker who takes a brief history and selects an appropriate evaluation venue. A physician or clinician is then assigned to the client's case.

Typical problems that may require an evaluation include:

• Interpersonal difficulties
• Mental or emotional illness
• Financial problems
• Marital, child, or family problems
• Employment stress
• Alcoholism or drug use
• Prescription drug use
• Legal problems
• Anxiety
• Depression
• Eating disorders and obesity
• Crisis intervention
• PTSD
• Seizures 
• Any other problem not listed can be evaluated

Treatment Interventions:

• Managing medical & mental health problems
• Finding life's meaning and purpose
• Coping with difficult situations
• Managing disappointment & failure
• Improving quality of life
• Recovering from grief/loss
• Relaxation/Stress management
• Dealing with family issues
• Managing PTSD and trauma 

Specific problems such as anger, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders and stress can be assessed through self-administered assessment tools, and can be accessed through the Health and Lifestyle Assessment. Interpretation of any Assessment Tool is best performed in conjunction with a professional mental health practitioner. 

Controlling emotional symptoms such as depression or anxiety may be best accomplished through the use of a combination of medication and specialized treatment programs. The use of medication and other medical services will be assessed and ordered by a physician.

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Anger Management - Conflict is a normal part of life and it occurs wherever there is a disagreement, clash, or competition between two or more opposing forces. Individuals who are not equipped to deal effectively may become angry to the point of destructive behavior. Sometimes anger is triggered by embarrassment or other emotional situations. In any event, the angry person may hurt others physically or emotionally. Anger can lead to violence. Treatment can offer the new skills to intervene on the anger cycle before it reaches a destructive point. People can also be taught to remain neutral and facilitate communication in order to help them achieve resolution to the problem/conflict.

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Grief counseling -is a phenomenon that affects all people. Feelings of sadness, fear, anger, and confusion fill our hearts and brains as we search for a reaction to the emotions. In the process of connecting feelings, the mind searches through a lifetime of memories and identifies anything that produced similar feelings in the past, although unresolved. Unresolved grief is cumulative and negative. While time dulls the pain, time does not complete what is emotionally unfinished.  

A primary feeling response to loss is fear. Anger is one of the most common ways we express our fear. While fear is often the emotional response to loss, isolation is frequently the behavioral reaction to the fear. Accessing the feelings, processing the fear and anger, and moving through the five stages of the grief process is the objective of grief counseling.

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