Outpatient Services
Bridges to Recovery offers outpatient comprehensive assessment, group treatment and psychoeducation services for adults at our office complex in Santa Monica, California. The outpatient services are designed to meet each individual’s needs while the client maintains attendance at school, fulfills employment responsibilities, and lives in his or her own home.
Outpatient Comprehensive Assessment:
Some adults have struggled for a while with emotional experiences and issues without seeking professional assistance. Others have sought assistance but have received different diagnostic opinions and treatment from providers resulting in confusion and unsuccessful efforts to resolve problems. Our Outpatient Comprehensive Assessment is designed to provide clients with a highly structured, holistic evaluation of their cognitive, emotional, and physical functioning to clarify diagnoses and an appropriate treatment plan. The assessment includes a review of prior medical and/or psychiatric records, psychological diagnostic and psychosocial interviews, psychological testing, medical/psychiatric history interview (including medication and substance use or abuse), and evaluation of current physical status. The assessment occurs over several consecutive days; the client is then given feedback and provided with follow-up assessment and/or treatment recommendations.
Outpatient Group Treatment/Psychoeducation:
Outpatient Group Treatment/Psychoeducation services include a variety of treatment and psychoeducation groups. Each group meets once a week for 90 minutes. Clients may enroll in 1 group a week or enroll in a module (a cluster of 3 groups per week designed to combine synergistically to address specific problem areas) for a reduced overall fee. The problem areas addressed by modules are: Affect Regulation Difficulties, Bipolar Disorders, Eating Disorders, Sexual Abuse, and Traumatic Experiences. Each client chooses their module groups in consultation with our Intake Case Coordinator to ensure the best individualized treatment program.
The groups are:
Dialectical Behavioral Therapy Skills: This group teaches clients four types of coping skills designed to increase adaptive personal and interpersonal functioning: Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotional Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. The group also provides a supportive environment for clients to practice their new skills.
Stress Management: The Stress Management group provides the client with tools and techniques for releasing stress and restoring balance to the physiology of the body. The client will have an opportunity to experience various forms of meditative practice, including contemplation, breathing (mindfulness) meditation, visual and sound meditations, guided imagery and visualization, and progressive relaxation.
Anger Management: This group teaches clients various techniques to identify, monitor, and appropriately manage angry feelings.
Assertion Training: In this group, clients learn to distinguish passive, assertive, and aggressive responses to others and develop skills to assert their needs and maintain their interpersonal boundaries.
Eating Disorders Process Group: This group is an integrative approach to evaluating the role of an eating disorder in the client’s life. Interpersonal dialogues in the supportive group context help the client reflect on the way in which eating disorder symptoms may serve to mask anxiety, depression, feelings of inadequacy, social anxiety, and poor self-esteem.
Body Image Discoveries: In this group the influences that shape the development of body image throughout our lives are presented and discussed. Specific gender, familial, cultural, and societal factors that may affect the client’s relationship with his or her body are explored. Correlates of a healthy body image are outlined and exercises are introduced to help the client heal personal body image issues.
Nutrition/Mindful Eating: Nutritional information and body intelligence techniques will be presented in this group, along with experiential exercises, to help the client create a balanced relationship with food. Through the exploration of the relationships among eating, taste, and feelings, the client learns to make eating choices that foster feelings of healthy nourishment.
Bipolar Disorders Group: In this group, clients (and their families if appropriate and available) learn the most up-to-date information about bipolar disorder, discover techniques to manage their stress levels and sleep (which directly impact the frequency and severity of the disorder), and develop social support and other coping mechanisms for living with bipolar illness.
Sexual Abuse Recovery: This group helps clients identify various negative emotional and behavioral effects of sexual abuse (particularly feelings of shame and social isolation) and develop adaptive skills with which to cope with those effects.
Addiction Recovery: This group is a process-oriented group designed to help clients understand how substance abuse has evolved into a self-defeating mechanism for avoiding undefined or uncomfortable feelings. Participants learn to identify and voice those emotions in a manner which promotes psychological and physical health.
Art Therapy: This group utilizes art expression as a modality for emotional healing and personal development. Through creating art in this group—using modalities of painting, drawing, collage, and sculpture—a creative pathway can be accessed for expressing and resolving past and present emotional issues through a greater awareness of self and others.