Outpatient therapy is often delivered in several formats:
- Individual Therapy: One-on-one sessions with a licensed therapist. This is the most common format.
- Group Therapy: Sessions involving one or two therapists and several patients who share a common experiences or issues like anxiety, depression grief, trauma, etc.
- Family or Couples Therapy: Focuses on improving communication and relationships within a family unit or between partners.
- Psychiatric Visits: Regular appointments with a psychiatrist for medication management, which usually occur less frequently than counseling therapy, sometimes monthly or even quarterly.
Where Outpatient Therapy Fits in the Continuum of Care
Outpatient therapy is at one end of a continuum of mental health care, with the choice of level depending on the severity of symptoms:
- Inpatient Hospitalization is the most restrictive level of care. It includes 24/7 medical and psychiatric care for acute risks like suicide attempts, severe self-harm, or psychosis.
- Partial Hospitalization Program (PHP) is intensive day treatment 5 days a week for several hours a day, while returning home each day.
- Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) is less intensive than PHP and occurs 3-5 days a week for 3 hours per day.
- Outpatient Therapy is the least restrictive and includes weekly or bi-weekly sessions while maintaining normal life activities.
Outpatient therapy can be a starting point for less severe conditions or the final step-down after completing a more intensive program like PHP or IOP.
Our Outpatient Therapists
