Southern Hills’
Outpatient Services are designed to help consumers make their lives work better.
The outpatient treatment program is designed to help consumers reduce their
complaints and learn other behaviors and attitudes to apply to their every day
lives. Outpatient Services are provided to all who are in need.
The general goal of outpatient treatment is to reduce or eliminate the
consumer’s symptoms, allowing them to return to an improved level of functioning
and/or to prevent relapses. While in outpatient treatment the consumer and the
therapist determine a diagnosis, treatment goals, and discharge plans. The
consumer is expected to actively participate in both developing and carrying out
the treatment goals. Progress will be monitored on a regular basis by both the
therapist and the consumer.
Outpatient services may include assessments, individual therapy, group therapy,
family therapy, psychological testing, consultation, emergency services, case
management services, psychiatric assessments, medication monitoring, and
educational services.
Each consumer receives an initial assessment by a therapist to determine
symptoms and concerns, treatment approaches, and the level of discomfort. The
outpatient provider, along with the consumer, defines the consumer’s strengths,
builds on their existing coping skills, and utilizes community resources, and if
the consumer chooses, family strengths and friends to relieve distress and
improve the consumer’s level of functioning. The consumer is an active
participant throughout the process and outpatient sessions are interactive and
focused on identifying solutions. The consumer is involved in establishing
treatment objectives and identifying ways to see that progress is being made.
Services for marital issues, parent-child problems, adjustment disorders, and
depression or anxiety are directed toward individuals for which fewer than eight
outpatient sessions would resolve the problem. Acute services include
individual, couple, family, and group treatment, supportive counseling, case
management, medication management and monitoring, evaluation, and testing. These
services contribute to life problem solutions, symptom resolution, emotional or
behavioral stabilization, or prevention of the need for more intensive
treatment.
Care to the severely and persistently mentally ill requires a different
approach. Chronic care is directed toward individuals with a long history of
mental illness and who have conditions which are expected to last for an
extended period of time. Examples of these problems are schizophrenia, major
depression, attention deficit disorder, hyperactivity, developmental disorders,
bipolar, and personality disorders. Services targeting these situations include
individual, couple, family, and group treatment, supportive counseling, case
management, medication management and monitoring, evaluation, testing, and
rehabilitative day treatment.
Individuals are discharged from outpatient care when the goals identified by the
consumer and therapist have been met, the consumer expresses a desire to end
treatment, or treatment is no longer appropriate. Consumers may be transferred
to different levels of care when a more or less intense service is required to
meet their goals.