Inpatient Depression Treatment

Getting Residential Treatment for Depression at Catalina

Everyone struggles with having a bad day or a low mood from time to time. When your depression does not lift for an extended period of time, it might be time to pursue more aggressive treatment to get your mood under control. There is hope and healing for this mental illness, but it may require serious action to get your mental health managed. Inpatient depression treatment might be the right move for you.

Catalina Behavioral Health is an evidence-based treatment center that can help you treat depression in a safe environment. Our skilled therapists and medical professionals can give you the pieces you need to thrive in any and every situation.

Keep reading to learn more about the residential treatment of depression in general, and why so many clients have come to rely on Catalina for help and support!

What is Offered for Inpatient Treatment at a Depression Treatment Center?

If you are pursuing an inpatient treatment center for depression, you should make sure that it offers you a robust program that will give you the skills and tools you need to manage your mental illness when you eventually return to your day-to-day life.

Here are some of the services you may want to investigate before you settle on inpatient treatment.

Medication Management and Monitoring

Prescription medication can help balance the neurotransmitters in your brain to help you respond more favorably to stress and difficult circumstances. Because of their frequent efficacy in minimizing the symptoms of depression, this is an important piece of a robust treatment plan.

Unfortunately, there are no one-size-fits-all solutions for depression medications. There are a number of medications you can use for moderate to severe depression, but many of them come with some notable side effects. Everyone will be impacted by their medication regimen differently, with some of these prescriptions saving lives and others doing little good.

Because medication can be hit or miss, you need to be under the careful eye of doctors, counselors, and nurses during your first few weeks on these medications. This can help them evaluate the benefits of the medication compared to its side effects and monitor your dosage.

Individual Therapy to Learn Coping Skills

Individuals struggling with depression often require therapy to learn how to retrain their thinking. There are two major schools of thought on therapeutic effectiveness for depression. Most clients can benefit from a combination of both cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.

Here is a quick primer on what you will learn in both forms of individual therapy.

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

Cognitive behavioral therapy deals with the intersection of your thoughts, feelings, and actions. In one of these sessions, your therapist will help you to more closely examine your thoughts and feelings. From here, you will learn more about how they influence your actions. Interrupting negative loops from the start with your thoughts and feelings can change behavioral outcomes.

This is also a great time to look at cognitive distortions that impact your mental health. These are the patterns of thoughts and feelings that can keep you mired in depression and worsen symptoms of any co-occurring anxiety issues.

Cognitive distortions that can intensify depression include:

• All-or-nothing thinking
• Being overly critical of yourself and your role in situations
• Generalizations
• Magnifying negative circumstances and minimizing positive ones
• Comparing yourself to others
• Catastrophizing
• Ignoring the positive in your life

Cognitive behavioral therapy is one of the most evidence-based treatments for depression. One study found that it is significantly more effective than medication alone. This is why Catalina Behavioral Health believes in offering both services.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy

Dialectical behavioral therapy or DBT is another form of talk therapy that can assist you in managing mental health concerns. Oftentimes, this type of therapy is great for those with depression who tend to have more intense emotions than those around them.

The core component of this treatment is the addition of coping skills to your mental toolbox.

One of the main teachings of DBT sessions is mindfulness. Practicing mindfulness allows you to sit with your feelings for longer periods of time without passing judgment on them or acting on them. This can be similar to meditation and produces great results for depressed patients.

Sometimes, dialectical behavioral therapy will be administered in a one-on-one setting. However, it can also be adapted to a group therapy setting. Both are helpful for people struggling with depression and are part of our thorough evidence-based inpatient depression treatment center approaches at Catalina.

Group Therapy for Peer Support

Oftentimes, people who struggle with depression, even ‘high function depression,’ and mental illness find that they feel isolated from those who are supposed to be closest to them. This means they may not have an adequate support system in their lives because they have pushed others away and isolated themselves.

Group therapy gives you the opportunity to work on building skills with others who need the same type of help that you do.

Some sessions will be focused on learning new coping skills such as mindfulness techniques while other sessions may be based on emotional accountability. You can share your feelings in a group session safely and confidentially without worrying about who might hear your thoughts at a later date.

This builds in a layer of support that might be missing from your life right now. You can continue with group therapy even once you move out of inpatient treatment and into an intensive outpatient program.

Family Therapy Sessions for Long-Term Support

In addition to group sessions, those struggling with depression can benefit from involving their family members in treatment. Family therapy accomplishes several different things in one convenient format. First, it allows you to reconnect with your family and start to rebuild the relationships that may have been damaged during a depressive episode.

Second, it allows family members to learn more about your condition so that they can increase their understanding of what you are going through. Psychoeducation is crucial not just for the person who is coping with depression but also for those around them.

If you have a hard time sharing what depression is like for you, a therapist can give your loved ones clearer insight into how you struggle, why, and how they can help.

Last, these sessions offer tangible ways that family members can support their loved ones. They may learn more about what coping skills are helpful for you, things they can say, and ways to offer support as you transition out of inpatient treatment and move on to outpatient treatment.

Alternative Therapies for a Holistic Approach

A good treatment center offers more than just therapeutic services. Our depression treatment center understands that the whole person is involved in a depression diagnosis. As a result, we tend to offer alternative therapies that engage your whole body, mind, and spirit during inpatient treatment.

Some of the therapies offered at Catalina Behavioral Health include yoga or exercise, art therapy, and music therapy. These engage different parts of the brain and help you to experience your emotions and bodily sensations which can be critical in depression treatment.

These skills can also be continued as you transition to outpatient treatment. For example, you may take yoga classes at a local gym or studio to help maintain a healthy life. They can be great coping skills to help take the edge off your depression.

Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)

Sometimes, depression is rooted in the experience of trauma in another area of your life. Even if you do not meet the criteria for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) along with your depression, you may benefit from coping with traumatic experiences with a form of therapy known as eye movement desensitization and reprocessing therapy or EMDR.

In one study, researchers found that EMDR had a clinically significant impact on long-term depression ratings using some of the most common mood disorder questions and scales.

This type of therapy reduces the intensity of traumatic memories by using bilateral eye stimulation. As the eyes move and you call the image of the trauma to mind, EMDR reduces its hold on you and helps you to reprocess those memories in a less intense way.

Co-Occurring Substance Abuse Counseling

Many people who struggle with depression will also have co-occurring substance use issues. It is quite common to find that those with psychiatric conditions self-medicate to make themselves feel better in the short term, even if it does impact them negatively in the long run.

Whether you turn to alcohol or drugs to cope with your depression, you may need another layer of help during inpatient treatment. It is important to ensure that you get help for all issues that could hinder your treatment for depression while you are in inpatient.

Catalina Behavioral Health offers depression treatment in addition to substance abuse treatment. We can help you with medical detox and medication-assisted treatment when it is required. There is also an opportunity to engage with others who are in a similar position through 12-step groups and other types of social support.

Transition to Intensive Outpatient Program

Last but not least, you should look for a depression treatment program that allows you to transition to a lower level of care once your mood disorder has been stabilized. Depressive disorders are unlikely to simply go away, even after an inpatient experience. It will require therapy, commitment, support, and lots of hard work to keep severe depression at bay.

Make sure that depression treatment offered by your inpatient program has a process for you to transition to an intensive outpatient program.

This allows you to return to your daily life and your loved ones with less structure than what you would find in inpatient treatment programs. You can come and go for your appointments and still see some of the same benefits you would get from inpatient treatment methods.

CBT, DBT, group therapy, and family therapy should all be part of your long-term treatment plan. Look for a facility, like Catalina, that either offers both outpatient and ongoing treatment programs. If this is not possible, look for a facility that works closely with other local providers to give you the support you need once you no longer meet the criteria for an inpatient stay.

Reach Out to Catalina for Proven Mental Health Programs

Are you ready to tackle the issue of your lingering and severe depression? Inpatient depression treatment is often the gold standard of care because it allows you to be monitored in a safe environment where you can receive medication monitoring and management as well as intensive therapeutic approaches.

It might feel scary to consider an inpatient stay, but it could provide you with the help you need to return to your daily life and responsibilities.

Catalina Behavioral Health offers inpatient treatment that ticks all of the boxes on the various treatment types you may be interested in to combat your depression. We understand what an important step it is to pursue treatment.

Our welcoming Admissions staff is ready to talk through the options of residential treatment for depression with you or your loved ones, so please make the confidential call now!