Your mental health plays a significant role in your overall quality of life. Not only does it impact your ability to carry out your everyday responsibilities, but it also can have an effect on your relationships, your goal planning and your sense of self. If you’re experiencing mental health challenges or conditions, such as an anxiety disorder or depression, seeking treatment can have a positive impact on every aspect of your life.
When thinking about mental health or psychotherapy treatment, it can be helpful to think about dosage, similar to how one may think about medication. Outpatient psychiatric treatment means that it doesn’t take place in a hospital setting and is typically about 1-2 hours per week. Outpatient usually refers to regular therapy sessions, including individual, family and group therapy. It can help you learn about the root causes of your concerns and learn strategies that can help you manage your mental and emotional distress.
There are also more intensive approaches that go beyond outpatient thus increasing the quantity or dosage of psychotherapy, such as the Intensive Outpatient Program and Partial Hospitalization Program that we provide at Guidelight. And while we don’t provide traditional outpatient treatment here, we think it’s important for you to see its benefits. If you find that you need more intensive help, we’ll be here for you.
5 ways that outpatient psychiatric treatment can help your overall well-being
Taking control of your mental health by seeking outpatient psychiatric treatment means that you’re ready to put the effort in to improve your quality of life (even if it’s hard sometimes). Here are five benefits of outpatient treatment:
Pinpointing your triggers
When it feels like your entire life is being affected by your mental health condition symptoms, it can be difficult to focus on the root causes of your distress. A psychotherapist can help you determine the triggers that are exacerbating your negative feelings, thoughts and behaviors.
Once you learn what your triggers are and recognize how they affect you, you can develop the skills you need to manage the effects when you’re faced with them. Learning to manage your triggers can help you gain confidence in your abilities to handle stressors.
Increasing self-awareness
Whether you’re being too hard on yourself or you find it difficult to recognize your negative emotional, mental and behavioral patterns, self-awareness often doesn’t come easy. In outpatient therapy, you can start to understand why you respond to certain stressors the way you do and gain perspective on your mental distress.
Increasing self-awareness has the following benefits:
- Improving communication skills
- Gaining mindfulness (appreciation of the present moment)
- Acknowledging and managing negative thoughts as they occur
Developing skills
Stressors and negativity can sometimes feel unavoidable, especially if you’re living with mental health conditions like an anxiety disorder or depression. Learning coping skills can help you improve your overall quality of life. You can collaborate with your outpatient provider to find the coping strategies that work best for your needs and goals.
Common skills that you may try out include:
- Challenging unwanted thoughts
- Increasing routine and enjoyable tasks
- Mindfulness exercises
- Journaling
Strengthening your self-image
When you’re having a difficult time with your mental health, it can make you feel unsure about who you want to be, what you believe in and what you’re able to accomplish. With treatment, you can establish a stronger sense of self by learning about your strengths and weaknesses and how to treat yourself with compassion.
Having a strong self-image can help you:
- Recognize what you deserve from others
- Break negative thought patterns
- Set long-term goals that you can look forward to
Learning how to navigate difficult situations
Avoidance is rarely the solution. Typically, the best way to deal with a situation that is affecting your well-being, such as a disagreement with a friend or a complicated decision, is by working through it. But when you’re experiencing mental health distress, that’s not always easy to do.
Outpatient mental health treatment gives you the opportunity to navigate difficult situations by talking them out in different dynamics, such as individual, family or group therapy.
Working through situations in outpatient treatment involves:
- Looking at it from different perspectives
- Exploring root causes of the situation, such as a negative behavioral pattern
- Understanding why it’s upsetting you (e.g., a fear of uncertainty)
Guidelight can help when you need more than outpatient psychiatric treatment
There are many people who find all the support and tools they need through outpatient treatment. However, it’s also possible that you need more intensive help beyond outpatient treatment due to the severity or complexity of your mental health challenges. And that’s OK.
At Guidelight, our Intensive Outpatient Program and Partial Hospitalization Program can provide you with the structured support you need to move along your mental health journey. We create individualized treatment plans to help people with a variety of conditions, including:
- Anxiety disorders
- Depressive disorders
- Mood disorders
- Psychotic disorders
- Personality disorders
- Self-harm
- Suicidality
- Trauma
- Adjustment disorders
Everyone has a seat at Guidelight. Contact our team today for more information or to schedule an initial appointment evaluation. Our compassionate team is here for you every step of the way.