At Villa Kali Ma, we have a uniquely gentle, compassionate, and effective Partial Hospitalization Program for women recovering from addiction, mental illness and trauma.

Our PHP blends the benefits of yoga and other holistic approaches together with a robust clinical regime, delivering medically effective psychological and neurobiological trauma treatment.

Through our signature approach that addresses the body, the mind, and the soul in one integrated course of therapies, we help women who have struggled with addiction, mental illness, and trauma recover lives of deep meaning, connection and purpose.

Why Partial Hospitalization is Key for Women’s Trauma Recovery

PHP is for women who need a nourishing, highly structured level of care, but aren’t able, for whatever reason, to attend a residential program.

By definition, PHPs are medically- and psychiatrically-supervised settings that offer six hours of treatment a day, five days a week, in a day treatment program format. Day programs take place at a treatment facility during core hours. Participants go home at the end of the day to stay in their own homes.

Nestled between the residential and Intensive Outpatient levels of care, PHP can be a transitional stage after completing residential. Alternatively, PHP can be a high-intensity treatment option in its own right, for women who qualify for residential, but aren’t in a position to live away from home.

Women receiving treatment at Villa Kali Ma’s holistic outpatient facility, the Office, may participate in our Partial Hospitalization Program. Some women choose to join our PHP as a safe step-down process after residential, and before transitioning to Intensive Outpatient (IOP). Other clients in our community of recovering women start their treatment journey with PHP right at the outset, following up with IOP.

PHP is the level care which is the most like inpatient treatment, while still being delivered in the day program format. Whereas the more flexibly-scheduled Intensive Outpatient Program level of care allow women to maintain some level of job responsibility while seeking treatment, PHP requires a greater time commitment.

PHP is key for women’s trauma recovery. Women with trauma very often struggle with addictions of some kind, as well as significant mental health symptoms. For women who are struggling to cope with daily living because of the overwhelming burdens associated with the legacy of trauma, the right kind of structured care is needed. As the highest level of structure available outside of residential, PHP is an important offering for women with trauma, mental illness, and addiction.

Intensive Care Without Full Residential Commitment

PHPs have many advantages for women who need a high intensity of services to address trauma and mental health needs alongside their addiction treatment, but who can’t find their way to committing to the whole enchilada of residential treatment.

As we shared in our post on How Being a Woman Affects Addiction, Mental Illness, and Trauma, there are special considerations when it comes to providing gender-specific care. Women have a lot of valid reasons why committing to residential treatment may be more challenging for them, including a few specific barriers to entering treatment that tend to be gendered.

Women’s reasons for not entering treatment can stem from being financially less prosperous than men typically are, or otherwise connect back to the fact that women are frequently positioned in social and job roles that involve caring for other people. Women who have families, who need to work to provide for their children, who are responsible for the care of elders in their home, and/or who have job responsibilities that involve caring for other vulnerables (such as nurses, social workers, therapists or teachers), often feel that they could not take the time away that they genuinely would need to heal, without letting people who are counting on them down. This situation tends, very broadly speaking, to be even more true for women of the global majority, and for women situated in less economically privileged positions (depending of course on the individual woman and her life circumstances).

All in all, PHPs may be considered a good way to combine medically necessary intensity of treatment, with minimal disruption to home life responsibilities. PHPs are also frequently used as a way to transition from higher levels of care to living independently in the community again.

Who Benefits Most from a Trauma-Focused PHP?

Women are especially well-served by trauma-focused treatment at any level of care. The more is learned, collectively, about how addiction and mental illness are healed, the more the role of trauma is highlighted, especially for women.

An estimated 75% of women seeking treatment for addiction report a history of traumatization, the most of which is classified as sexual trauma and/or trauma from childhood neglect and abuse.

Trauma is also linked to several mental health diagnoses. The most gendered diagnoses, such as borderline personality disorder, are periodically questioned because of the challenges associated with differentiating them from trauma.

Women are statistically more likely than men to present with a co-occurring disorder in addition to substance addiction, including additional behavioral health diagnoses (eating disorders, self-harm, relationship addiction, codependency, etc).

All in all, it can be said that there are strong links between trauma, mental illness, and addiction in all directions, and that these links are stronger for women than for men. This suggests that women require a more sophisticated, refined and personalized approach to treatment, such as the approach we have developed in our programs at Villa Kali Ma.

Whether or not you are aware of having a trauma history (many women struggle with memory, and may only have the symptoms), it is highly recommended that women receive support in a trauma-informed treatment environment for a variety of reasons. One reason is that trauma-focused treatment works well to disarm resistance, since it is gentler, more non-judgmental, and proceeds at a pace which is most respectful of women’s needs. Women’s needs for boundaries, to feel safe, and for all aspects of treatment to be fully consensual are honored in trauma-informed approaches.

Given the high chance that trauma has some role to play in why a woman is presenting with mental health symptoms and addiction patterning in the first place, healing in a trauma-informed context is strongly recommended.

Explore Healing at Villa Kali Ma’s Women’s PHP 

The Partial Hospitalization Program we developed at Villa Kali Ma is designed specifically for substance-addicted women struggling with their mental health needs and trauma history to find their way back to health, happiness and wholeness.

The three-part burden of trauma, addiction, and mental-emotional dysfunction is very familiar to us, from our own personal histories as wounded healers, and from the many women we have helped heal in the past.

When we say we work with women to heal mind, body, and spirit, we mean it. Our programs embrace somatic (body-based) healing modalities, bio-psycho-spiritual approaches like yoga, creative healing approaches like expressive arts therapy, nutritional healing, gold standard trauma treatments like EMDR, and more. We also offer women nurturing therapeutic support, individually and in community, in which to form safe bonds of trust with safe others.

We know that when women are seen in the totality of who they are, not only for their pain and mistakes, but also for their brilliance, resilience, love, and infinite capacity to recover, they do indeed recover.

If this gently effective approach to healing women’s pain intrigues you, we invite you to come find out more about how we might co-create your recovery together.