Figuring out what kind of care we need for our escalating mental health troubles can be intimidating. Amid the many approaches and pathways to mental health recovery available out there, how can we know which is the best for us? How can we avoid getting bogged down in information overload?
In this blog post, we at Villa Kali Ma will do our best to demystify one of the best treatment options for women who struggle with mental health disorders, trauma, and substance abuse: Intensive Outpatient Programs.
Do I need an Intensive Outpatient Program?
When we’re really struggling, we need more help than the traditional, once-a-week therapy model provides. We need more attention, different kinds of help than we’ve had until now, and a safer, more contained setting. This is most likely to be true when we have serious mental health symptoms and/or trauma, and also if we use substances.
Intensive Outpatient Programs aim to offer this higher level of care. By providing a high frequency of face-to-face therapy hours, including individual psychotherapy, group, couples, and family therapy, education about mental health, training in coping skills, and many other kinds of support, IOPs immerse women in a healing program that addresses many levels of need at once.
At Villa Kali Ma, for example, our IOP helps women address trauma and mental health disorders, while also receiving treatment for substance use disorders. We do this through a core program of contemporary evidence-based clinical approaches – interventions like Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy.
These robustly effective clinical modalities are nestled into a comfy cushion of ancient holistic practices. Therapies like massage, acupuncture, nutrition, and yoga help women embody their inner and outer changes more comfortably.
All in all we aim to create an environment that guides women through the phases of healing with the maximum amount of regard, respect, and sensitivity to each woman’s unique soul journey.
In contrast to traditional rehabilitation settings, participants can attend Intensive Outpatient Programs while living at home and maintaining some level of life responsibilities. For this reason, they’re a popular choice for women who do not feel they need to fully pause their current life, or for whom that isn’t a viable option.
In the end, figuring out whether an IOP is a good idea for you is a decision which can be made most easily with an intake specialist, who will make a recommendation for you that’s tailored to your individual case. An intake specialist will ask the right questions to help you figure out what kind of care you realistically will need to get better.
How do I know I need an Intensive Outpatient Program?
Stability and Safety
If you need therapy more often than once a week, but you don’t need round-the-clock supervision, attending an IOP could be a good option for you.
How do you know if you need therapy more than once a week? If you are struggling with severe negative emotions, and have a hard time refraining from negative behaviors – drinking too much, using too many prescription pills – or you’re constantly experiencing triggers and flashbacks from your trauma, once-a-week therapy most likely won’t cut it.
Once-a-week therapy is good for people who have a relative degree of stability and safety, who can therefore participate in therapy productively without overwhelming pain and crisis interfering with the healing process.
Not sure? One way to find out would be to attend weekly therapy and see if you are able to stabilize and feel safe at that level of care – if you are, great! But if you’re not, read on.
Crisis As A Call For Help
For those who are not able to feel safe and stable with weekly therapy alone, please know that there is no shame in this. It’s actually rather common for women who have been very deeply hurt, as many women have. Many of us need a chance to reset our bodies, minds, and spirits to a safer baseline, and that takes an approach which addresses all these layers of our being in tandem.
If we haven’t yet had the chance to deal with our deepest wounding, addiction, trauma, and mental health symptoms tend to erupt into the surface of our lives. These disruptive symptoms easily reach crisis levels, overwhelming our current ability to soothe and normalize ourselves. This is just how it works – not a personal failing on our part.
These crises are a sign from our inner depths that we need help, that something serious needs addressing. When we lose control of our behavior, our emotions, or our thoughts, it’s because part of us deep inside is pulling the fire alarm, saying that something is deeply wrong. If you feel like your body, mind, heart, and spirit seem to be going haywire, this would be a signal that on a deep level, you are sounding the alarm as a way of getting the help you need to heal.
What are the signs you need an Intensive Outpatient Program?
If any of the following apply to you, you would most likely benefit greatly from an Intensive Outpatient Program.
1. You’re not able to refrain from using prescriptions, drugs, and/or alcohol.
If you recognize, or have been told by your therapist or loved ones, that the way you use drugs, alcohol, or prescriptions represents a block to your healing, relationships, or ability to participate positively in life, you probably have a substance-related illness which is best treated in a clinical setting. IOP can be a good resource for people who don’t necessarily need to be supervised constantly but do need substance abuse treatment.
2. You experience out-of-control emotions, and/or engage in self-harming behaviors
If you often feel overwhelming emotions, including rage, fear, sadness, and devastation, you may need a higher-intensity therapy program to help you address what’s going on that’s manifesting as these imbalanced emotions. This is also true if you have obsessive and painful thoughts, thoughts you can’t get under control, which make you unhappy and get in the way of your life.
Finally, if you engage in any kind of self-harm, such as cutting, disordered eating, risky sexual behavior, or drama-filled relationships, these are all signs that something within you needs help at a deep level so you can feel better. A trauma-informed IOP like the one we offer at Villa Kali Ma would be a good setting for you to get help that matches your level of need.
3. You have a mental illness or trauma and you also use substances
If you have been diagnosed with a mental illness, such as depression, anxiety, or post-traumatic stress disorder, and you use substances to cope with your symptoms, you are very likely locked into a negative interaction between these two conditions, which will feed into each other in ways detrimental to your wellbeing. It is highly advised that you enter a structured program that will address both sides of the coin.
4. You have completed an Inpatient Program in the Past
If you have completed a residential rehab program recently, the staff probably recommended that you follow up with an Intensive Outpatient Program to support you in transitioning into your post-rehab life. If that’s your situation, we also highly recommend that you engage in an IOP program, to help you down-step safely and gradually.
If you completed an inpatient program a while ago, and had some measure of success staying sober and safe, but now you have slipped or relapsed, an IOP program is also a good choice. IOP can help you restart and refresh your healing path, without necessarily needing to go back into a supervised setting.
Villa Kali Ma offers an IOP for women
The Intensive Outpatient Program we created at Villa Kali Ma reflects our accumulated wisdom about what really helps wounded women recover from the triple burdens of addiction, trauma, and mental illness.
Modeled from our core residential treatment model, but adapted to provide more flexibility in schedule including work and living arrangements, our program is a good choice for women who need to stay in their home environments while receiving high-level treatment.
We’ve paired a solid clinical core of modalities together with a rich selection of alternative, healing therapies that help you connect to feelings of profound safety, meaning, and depth to help you understand yourself more lovingly.
Whatever your situation, if you’re sensing a need for a higher level of care than you’ve been able to have so far, to address your deepest and most aching levels of need, our Intensive Outpatient Program heals through body, mind, and spirit might be the right choice for you.
Whatever you decide, we wish you encouragement and strength, and all the best on your path to recover your inherent wholeness. It is worth it, and you are worth it.
