When you struggle with mental health challenges, you may need more than a brief hospital stay to start feeling better. You may also need more than just one or two weekly visits with a talk therapist.

To help you overcome serious and debilitating conditions like anxiety, depression, and panic attacks, you may need to undergo therapeutic care that is offered several days a week and lasts for a number of weeks or months. You may benefit from taking part in a therapeutic intensive outpatient program.

Frequency

One of the main reasons to undergo an intensive outpatient program involves maintaining frequent treatment for your mental health conditions. After you are diagnosed with these illnesses, either during a hospital stay or emergency room visit, you may need more than just a weekly visit with a talk therapist to improve your mental health. You may need to undergo a program that meets three to four times a week.

The frequency of the program can be critical for keeping you in contact with medical and therapeutic professionals who can work with you to improve your mental health. You avoid a lapse in care and having to deal with your symptoms yourself five or six days a week alone.

Learning Coping Mechanisms

Your intensive outpatient program may also be a way for you to learn how to cope with your mental health symptoms. For example, you may not know how to feel better when you are in a major depressive episode. You might want to stay in bed, not eat and not take a shower or get dressed. You also may feel like committing suicide because of the intensity of your symptoms.

However, your IOP treatment may teach you how to turn your mind, focus your attention on a meaningful activity, reach out to loved ones or use other coping skills. You may avoid harming yourself when your depressive symptoms are at their worst because of what you learn in your intensive outpatient program.

Variety of Therapy

Finally, your intensive outpatient therapy program may allow you to enjoy various therapies, such as arts and crafts or pet therapy. You may experience a lift in your mood and less severe symptoms during your time in the program because of the therapy varieties available to you.

Intensive outpatient therapy can benefit you when you suffer from poor mental health. You may improve because of frequent care, learning how to manage your symptoms and from the variety of therapy activities offered in the program.