At Cornerstone we offer a wide range of treatment and care options for people with Substance Use Disorders. When a client first arrives for their orientation, they will have a conversation with their counselor to see which treatment options might be right for them. These options can vary based on the severity of the client’s addiction, the client’s current health status, as well as the client’s schedule and outside availability for treatment. A popular treatment regimen among practitioners and patients is outpatient therapy.
Outpatient treatment (OP/OPT) is any form of therapy or treatment that can be administered without the client staying overnight in the facility. This means that after a client’s therapy is over, the client is free to leave and return to his daily life. Outpatient care is generally conducted by scheduling appointments with counselors, and then seeing that counselor anywhere from a few times a month to multiple times a week based on a client’s need. During these appointments therapists may have clients focus on various topics, behavioral patterns, or recovery strategies and then ask the client to practice what they learned in therapy at home and in their regular life between appointments. This provides greater independence and flexibility to the client.
Standard Outpatient Therapy: Standard outpatient therapy only requires patients to attend appointments ranging from once a month to a few times a month. With this treatment option, therapist and client will work together to develop skills that the client can practice between appointments and begin to develop independence from substance use.
Intensive Outpatient Therapy: Intensive outpatient therapy requires clients to attend therapy a few days a week for around an hour or so. This option is good for people who have home obligations but need the benefit of continuous care and constant communication with the therapist during the early stages of recovery.
Partial Hospitalization: Patients go to the treatment facility for several hours every day to receive treatment and therapies. This option is intensive and highly structured.
Because outpatient treatment can look dramatically different between therapies, it can be used to address a number of different disorders and can be utilized in client care regardless of where the client is in their recovery journey.
Outpatient treatments and therapies are used to address any number of conditions. From medical to mental, outpatient treatment options exist across the spectrum of healthcare. At Cornerstone, our outpatient therapies are used to treat Substance Use Disorders including but not limited to:
Cornerstone also utilized outpatient services in order to offer services to patients with court ordered DUI related rehabilitation and DUI related re-licensure programs such as ADSAP. Outpatient therapies can be administered in a number of different ways, depending on the types of therapeutics utilized in the programming.
Because outpatient therapy encompasses such a wide variety of care, the kinds of therapy offered between programs can vary dramatically. Many programs even offer multiple therapeutic approaches in order to better meet the needs of different patients. Just a few of the therapeutic options that you might encounter are:
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy: Easily the most popular approach, cognitive behavioral therapy encourages clients to focus on the connection between undesirable behaviors and the emotional thought processes behind them in order to understand how to change those behaviors.
Humanistic Therapy: This approach leads clients through a journey to recognize their “true self” and the self they want to be, and then work towards embodying that ideal.
Alderian Therapy: Alderian Therapy emphasizes setting achievable goals and working towards those goals in a way that informs future goal setting behaviors. There is also a focus on mental health education.
Psychoanalysis: Psychoanalysis is long-term talk therapy that focuses heavily on the unconscious mind as a way of exploring and explaining emotions and behaviors. Once uncovered, the undesirable behaviors can be addressed.
Psychodynamic: This is a long-term talk therapy approach focused on a deep exploration of emotions and thought patterns.
Strengths-Based: By addressing the strengths that a client already has, this approach utilizes those strengths to build confidence, develop new skills, and identify how those strengths can be utilized to help the client in other aspects of his life.
Many of these approaches can be used concurrently with medical therapeutics, other talk-therapy options, holistic therapeutics, and alternative therapies. Clients can engage in these approaches and others in order to work towards meaningful recovery. What’s more is that these approaches are all able to be fitted to the scheduling and lifestyle needs of the client, meaning that the clients can maintain their employment, home support networks, and practice what they are learning in therapy in their home life. Through outpatient therapy all of these things are possible.
Maintain Employment - Outpatient therapy is easily schedulable around employment. Whereas many jobs are not able to accommodate employees being gone for a month at an inpatient facility, oftentimes employers are very understanding of employees briefly stepping out for an appointment. Keeping employment is not only important to the financial wellbeing of clients, it can also be a major factor in maintaining confidence and a healthy schedule.
Take Care of Home Obligations - Many people have obligations at home. Whether it be children, a spouse, pets, loved ones, or even a vegetable garden in need of care, it can sometimes be impossible for people to just leave their home obligations for inpatient treatment. Outpatient treatment options remove the worry and allow clients to return home every day to their regular life and those that they need to take care of.
Home Support Network - While removal from the home environment for treatment can have benefits, it should not be forgotten that many people have support networks at home that they do not have in inpatient facilities. By being able to get care and return to their homes, clients are able to allow their family, friends, and even co-workers to become a vital part of their support network and that can be invaluable to recovery.
Cost Effective - Because clients are not paying for beds, meals, staffing, and overhead associated with inpatient therapy, outpatient options are drastically more cost effective than inpatient treatments. Additionally, some insurance companies will not cover inpatient, but many will cover outpatient therapy options.
Treatment and Real Life - Clients learn a lot of new skills and coping mechanisms in therapy. In outpatient therapy, clients are able to test and practice the skills they are learning in real time when they return to their home life. Not only does outpatient therapy force an integration of the skills learned, but it also allows patients to see how these skills might need to be adapted to fit their personal needs, as well as what challenges they may face.
Trial and Error - By immediately trying out the skills learned in therapy in their home life, clients engage in a sort of trial and error. Some skills that they learn and work on in treatment may not be a good fit for their home life and they might learn this by testing these skills out at home. When something does not go well, clients can return to their next therapy appointment and discuss what went wrong, why it went wrong, and what skills might be better suited to that individual. This would neve be possible with inpatient therapy which often functions in a more “catch and release” sort of way.
While outpatient therapeutic options hold a wide range of benefits, it should be understood that sometimes outpatient therapy is not the appropriate care option given where people are at in their recovery journey. Many times, people who have severe addictions or in need of detox will need inpatient and around-the-clock care to make sure that they are working through their addiction in a way that is both physically and mentally safe for them. That being said, many people who begin in inpatient therapy graduate to outpatient therapy and can experience the independance and benefits of it when they are ready.
At Cornerstone, we treat a variety of substance use disorders through our outpatient and intensive outpatient programming. Our focus is on providing education, prevention, intervention, and treatment to those struggling with addictions of all kinds.
If you or a loved one are struggling with a substance use disorder and you believe that you might benefit from our outpatient treatment options, visit us at https://www.cornerstonecares.org/contact/ to find a facility close to you and call to schedule an appointment. Walk-ins are also welcome!
What is the goal of outpatient therapy?
The goal of outpatient therapy is to provide a substantive therapeutic option that not only addresses the clients option, but also meets their scheduling and home-life needs.
Who benefits from Outpatient Therapy?
Outpatient therapy is utilized across a number of medical and psychological care platforms. At Cornerstone, we use outpatient therapy to treat people with substance use disorders.
Are Outpatient Therapy and Intensive Outpatient Therapy the same thing?
Intensive outpatient therapy is a subcategory of outpatient therapy. Intensive outpatient therapy is a form of outpatient therapy which requires patients to appear for therapy everyday or multiple times a week to ensure their progress in treatment.
How long does outpatient therapy last?
Outpatient therapy does not have a set time schedule. Outpatient therapies progress with client’s successes and regressions and can be wholly dependent on the client’s needs.
