Sometimes patients who face mental health challenges find themselves feeling stuck.
Their weekly or biweekly therapy sessions don’t seem to be enough to overcome their difficulties, but they also don’t have the ability or need to seek inpatient care.
In these instances, intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) can provide an intermediate approach that can serve the community whose needs are not adequately met by other treatment plans.
In an IOP, the patient has a structured schedule, often including several therapy sessions per week.
Some of these may be individual sessions with one-on-one counseling with their therapist.
Others may include group therapy, family therapy or other specialized therapeutic approaches tailored to their specific needs.
But the IOP doesn’t consist strictly of psychiatric or psychological care.
When the IOP is crafted with a more holistic approach in mind, it may include other disciplines as well, intended to help with healing by less traditional means.
When you are seeking intensive outpatient treatment New Jersey, ask about programs that are tailored to include consideration for the mind-body connection. Supporting the health of the body through programs like yoga, barre and even dance can round out an IOP, leading to a more complete healing experience and creating structures that will ultimately lead to lasting behavioral change.
Health: A Complex System
While many people think of mental health as separate from the body’s condition, the reality is far more complex.
The interplay between the body’s systems, the brain, and the gut are a topic of constant study, with more interrelationships and feedback loops being discovered all the time.
So when seeking help for mental health, don’t assume that your body’s needs are a separate issue.
A troubled mind can create numerous problems in the body’s function, even as physical ailments can be directly causative for mental health ailments.
For this reason, creating a plan for an IOP with your mental health professional should include a plan for physical healing as well.
A Structure of Longterm Growth
Sometimes changing cognition requires a lot more than just discussion and analysis.
WHen you reach the decision that you want to see lasting change in your behavior and in how you feel, speaking about the change you want to see is only one step.
Lasting change means restructuring your daily life.
It means taking responsibility for the condition of your physical body, restructuring your habits to emphasize health, and building accountability into your routine.
So when you create an IOP, don’t expect to simply talk about your problems several times a week.
Don’t misunderstand; a therapist’s input is vital. The therapy sessions will help you create and learn to use tools that will protect your progress from triggers.
They will also help you determine which of your habitual daily actions are good or harmless, and which are leading you back toward negative behaviors.
But when you combine these sessions with a structured routine that encourages better physical health, something greater than the sum of its parts can emerge.
Exercise classes give you routine and goals that don’t leave room for self-destructive patterns.
Nutritional guidance helps ensure that your body’s needs are properly met, reducing the cravings that your body can reinterpret as triggers for addictive behaviors.
Even the social nature of classes can be helpful, reducing the sensation of isolation that can lead to mental health spirals and ultimately back into negative or self-destructive behaviors.
Mind and Body: The Ultimate Alliance
Believe it or not, changing behavioral patterns–even negative ones–creates stress in the body.
Our bodies can quickly come to rely on habitual actions, and it can react with increased inflammation, stress and tension when habits are altered.
In this way the body can be one of the most powerful opponents of true, lasting change.
This is yet another reason why including retraining for the body in your IOP is so important.
Lifestyle changes that reduce stress and inflammation can help buffer the negative effects on the body’s systems, softening the blow and reducing the likelihood of relapse for the purpose of relieving physical symptoms.
Trying to erase old habits without filling that time and mental space with something else can backfire, as the empty hours stretch on and the mind looks to habitual coping mechanisms for stimulation and fulfillment.
But when your treatment plan includes wellness for the body as well as the mind, there are new sources of stimulation and fulfillment: exercises to try, moves to practice, articles to research.
And as the body becomes healthier and more resilient to stress, the mind begins to relax and cease in its constant quest for a return to old coping mechanisms.
When you are looking for intensive outpatient treatment in New Jersey, find a therapy practice that will help you seek out the right forms of healing for your body as well as your mind. This is the most effective path for lasting change.
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