Honesty, bravery, accountability, and courage. They’re just a few words to describe what you embody if you’ve realized it’s time to seek help for your mental health — a major, life-changing step.
But there’s another set of terms that can be easy to get lost in once you start to explore your options. Inpatient, outpatient treatment, therapy, and rehab. They’re sometimes used interchangeably, but the fact is that each one points to a different, specific type of care. Unfortunately, this confusion can create a barrier to seeking care for many people.
“Navigating the system of mental health services can be stressful and upsetting, especially in a difficult time,” says the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Someone may not know where to start or know what services they need.”
Of those services, outpatient mental illness treatment is a perfect example. Its appeal lies in its availability to treat an array of mental health issues, popular for its inherent flexibility without the need to compromise your treatment or day-to-day life.
What does outpatient treatment entail, and how can an outpatient therapist navigate you along the steps of your mental health journey? Read more to find out.
What Is a Therapist?
A licensed professional who specializes in helping people with their mental and emotional wellness, an outpatient therapist’s singular job is in providing a confidential space for you to talk openly and honestly about what’s happening in your life and how it impacts your mental health.
One of the tenets of psychotherapy is that your thoughts, emotions, and behaviors are all interconnected. In outpatient treatment, this means that by learning how to recognize unhelpful thoughts — and how they affect your mood and actions — you can “reframe” your mental narrative and influence yourself to feel better and act in more positive ways.
An outpatient counselor skilled at treating different mental health challenges can guide you through the difficult maze that anxiety, depression, trauma, or a personality disorder can create. Trusting them to guide you safely through your fears, uncertainties, triggers, or emotional pain points helps you get the most out of outpatient treatment.
And as outpatient mental health therapy progresses, you’ll gain a renewed perspective and intimate insights about yourself you never thought possible.
Above all, an outpatient counselor is a champion for your mental health. They’re your advocate, someone to empower you and be on your side to see you succeed, thrive, and go into the world and live your best life.
Types of Therapist
There are several different types of therapists:
- Psychiatrists are medical doctors (Doctor of Medicine, MD or Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, DO) who specialize in treating mental health. Psychiatrists generally treat more severe, complex mental illnesses and, being physicians, they’re the only type of psychotherapist legally allowed to prescribe medication in addition to offering behavioral health therapy. If you’re seeing another type of therapist who recommends medicine in your treatment plan, you’ll be referred to a psychiatrist.
- Psychologists (PhD or PsyD) hold a doctoral degree in the Science of Human Behavior and are experts in the nature of the mind. They’re qualified to diagnose mental health conditions, hold individual and group therapies, and conduct psychological testing and assessments. Clinical psychologists often specialize in more serious mental health conditions, so you might work more with a counseling psychologist in an outpatient setting, who helps people work through emotional, social, and situational life issues.
- Licensed Professional Counselors (LPC), Licensed Mental Health Counselors (LMHC), and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapists (LMFT) require a master’s degree in psychology, counseling psychology, marriage, family therapy, or a related focus, and are trained and qualified to diagnose and treat a wide array of mental health issues.
- Licensed Clinical Social Workers (LCSWs) are another type of outpatient counselor you might work with in your outpatient mental illness treatment journey. They not only provide counseling, but they’re also trained in case management, which is valuable for connecting to other resources after you complete outpatient rehab, like community support groups or transitional housing.
What Is Outpatient Therapy?
Outpatient psychotherapy is a type of mental health care that doesn’t require you to be hospitalized or live at a residential mental health facility. During outpatient rehab, you’ll attend therapy sessions during the day while still living at home and continuing to work, attend school, spend time with family, and live your life as usual.
Every mental health treatment plan is tailored and customized for you, but outpatient mental illness treatment is already designed to work around your schedule and commitments, so you can take advantage of seeking therapy and adhering to your personal and professional commitments during the week.
Because you don’t sacrifice any of your independence while enrolled in outpatient treatment, it’s often a preferred therapeutic approach for people with less severe mental health conditions or with milder symptoms. On the continuum of mental health care, many people eventually graduate to outpatient rehab after progressing through a more intensive inpatient program.
Looking For Mental Health Treatment?
Inpatient vs Outpatient Therapy
One thing in common between inpatient and outpatient psychotherapy is that they’re both effective pathways to treating mental illness. In fact, studies show that about 75%, or three-fourths, of people who enter mental health treatment benefit from it, according to the American Psychiatric Association.
Both areas of treatment also focus on the same therapeutic model of individual, group, and holistic therapies. Whether inpatient or outpatient, you’ll attend sessions alone with your therapist/counselor or sometimes in a group setting with others. You also might have scheduled time for yoga, meditation, art studio therapy, or other alternative approaches.
How inpatient and outpatient differ is in the setting and intensity of treatment.
Inpatient Mental Health Treatment
Inpatient treatment calls for you to stay in a residential mental health facility for the duration of treatment. It’s an appropriate choice for people whose mental health issues have gone unaddressed to the point that they may be unable to care for themselves, or if they pose a danger to others, or risk self-harm or suicide, and need constant supervision. You’ll engage in therapy several hours a day, five days a week.
One of the benefits of inpatient treatment is in its design — by removing you from the stressors and triggers that might exacerbate your symptoms or negate what you’ve learned in therapy, you can devote your full, 24/7 focus on rehab and move to the next stage of recovery.
Outpatient Mental Health Treatment
Outpatient treatment, by contrast, is on the other end of the treatment spectrum. You might enter an outpatient program straight away if you’ve been diagnosed with a condition that doesn’t impair your ability to live independently or interfere with career or family obligations.
Or you’ve been in inpatient treatment for a period of time and shown such a degree of advancement and momentum that it would be too restrictive for you to continue. Outpatient psychotherapy, in this case, opens up more freedom for you to keep up with treatment while regaining a large degree of autonomy.
In other cases, some people in treatment may need other, more transitional step-down options if their conditions aren’t severe enough for inpatient but require more comprehensiveness than standard outpatient. Here, an intensive outpatient program (IOP) or partial hospitalization program (PHP) is more structured and intensive.
In both settings, you’ll attend longer therapy sessions for more days a week, but IOP and PHP still count as outpatient treatment, enabling you to return home at the end of the day.
What Is Outpatient Mental Health Treatment Like?
A typical outpatient schedule might see you attending behavioral therapy two to three afternoons per week for a couple of hours or select early evenings depending on your schedule.
You’ll see you meeting with your outpatient therapist at their office or a mental health facility for a talk therapy session. If you were previously in inpatient therapy, outpatient therapy will differ because instead of living on-site, you’ll go home after sessions are complete. You don’t stay overnight. But the most important part of leaving each session? It’s the work you do between appointments and applying what you’ve learned to your routine.
For example, if you’re undergoing outpatient anxiety treatment, you might be working with your outpatient counselor on the Five Senses technique on a Friday that you can use over the weekend if something triggers you while you’re out and about. Outpatient depression treatment might involve setting small goals that get you out and reconnecting with the activities you once enjoyed but fell by the wayside — an exercise in accomplishing something each day, no matter how minor. Then, you’ll report to your outpatient therapist at your next session.
Footprints to Recovery Mental Health provides outpatient treatment programs in New Jersey.
What Are the Benefits of Seeing an Outpatient Therapist?
Outpatient mental illness treatment carries several advantages:
Flexibility
Signing up for inpatient treatment comes with accepting the fact that you’ll need to take significant time off from work or even forego a semester of school. You’ll only be able to see loved ones during visiting hours. It’s a necessity where your mental health needs to come first.
But in an outpatient rehab setting, you don’t need to put life on hold, no matter how temporary. Your weekly sessions are still a priority, but they and your daily goings-on are woven together into your schedule. Therapy sessions might be scheduled right after work ends for the day and wrap up in time to get home for dinner.
On particularly busy weeks when you might anticipate work deadlines or school exams, it’s entirely possible to move your sessions to the evenings or weekends.
If you need additional support, you can increase the frequency of sessions with your outpatient counselor or consider adding group sessions. The ability to adjust your schedule accordingly speaks to the flexibility that outpatient mental illness treatment provides.
Establishing a Routine
With flexibility in outpatient treatment also comes the chance to build healthy routines and structure. Just as going to the gym and building a fitness regimen becomes a solid anchor to ground your week, outpatient psychotherapy can provide a similar foundation.
Regularly scheduled outpatient treatment appointments are something to look forward to, particularly if you have challenging moments during the week. Checking back in with your therapist offers a solace you can count on, a consistent safe space, and a set period of time to work on yourself and your issues.
Likewise, the more predictable routine of outpatient treatment opens up the chance to bring to sessions the unpredictable experiences you encounter. Thoughts, insights, and talking points might occur to you during your week. If your outpatient therapist has recommended journaling, write down your thoughts as they occur. Bringing them to your regularly scheduled sessions ensures that you can both dive in and address them without getting overlooked.
Personalized Treatment Plan
It’s a definitive truth in the mental health community that there are no “one-size-fits-all” methods, and for outpatient mental illness treatment, this is 100% true. In any treatment program, your plan is customized and personalized to meet you where you’re at.
Why is it personalized? Five people with bipolar disorder may share a similar set of symptoms, but they might experience them in different, nuanced ways. Your experiences and backstories may be radically different. A standard, templated treatment plan will fall short and serve each person less than they deserve.
But an outpatient depression treatment plan or an outpatient anxiety treatment plan takes into account your symptoms, strengths, and goals.
This discovery occurs during an initial consultation with your outpatient counselor, upon which your plan is developed. The type of outpatient psychotherapy that’s utilized — like cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT), acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT), eye movement and desensitization reprocessing (EMDR) therapy, or others — is chosen because they’re best suited to you and your diagnosis. The frequency of sessions and the mixture of individual and group therapies are balanced according to the level of care you require.
But moreover, your treatment plan is essentially a living document that can be continually reviewed, changed, and adjusted by you and your outpatient counselor together, depending on your progress or if any new needs arise.
Finding the Best Mental Health Treatment Center for Me
To remove those barriers to care cited by NAMI, what are some steps you can take to set any doubts or uncertainties to rest? Start by looking online at treatment facilities that are accredited and credentialed with respected mental health organizations. Does the center carry positive feedback from clients?
Consider the experience of the clinical staff. You should feel confident that the therapists and counselors have extensive experience treating a range of disorders with different therapeutic approaches. Does the facility offer a range of care options, including inpatient, outpatient, aftercare, and additional services?
Most importantly, what’s the facility’s overall care philosophy? Does their mission resonate with you and what you hope to achieve with your mental and behavioral health?
Our mission is simply that we believe everyone has the right to hope, healing and happiness regardless of their circumstances. And it’s our promise, mission and goal that exceptional, high-level care is accessible and affordable to all and supports your long-term recovery. We’re here to help and to answer any questions you have about outpatient mental illness treatment for you or a loved one. Contact us to learn more.
- https://www.namichicago.org/blog/barriers-to-mental-health-care
- https://www.nami.org/about-mental-illness/treatments/types-of-mental-health-professionals/
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22679-psychologist
- https://my.clevelandclinic.org/health/articles/22702-psychiatrist
- https://www.psychiatry.org/patients-families/psychotherapy
- https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/behavioral-health-partners/bhp-blog/april-2018/5-4-3-2-1-coping-technique-for-anxiety
