Mental Health Treatment Therapies

Bridges to Recovery utilizes additional therapies such as art therapy, yoga, meditation and acupuncture as part of our holistic whole-person mental health treatment strategy. Often our clients respond especially well to non-traditional formats of therapy.

We understand that each client's needs are different. Our clinical team will prepare an individualized treatment program involving multi-modal treatment modalities. There are occasions where a client will request an addition of specific services from our clinical or medical staff, or our staff will suggest additional services based on their clinical or medical assessments. Client preferences will play an important role in any modifications we make to the overarching mental health treatment plan.

Art Therapy

Art Therapy refers to the therapeutic use of art making, within a professional relationship, by people who experience physical or emotional illness, trauma, or challenges to living, and by people who seek personal development.

Through creating art, and reflecting on the art products and processes, individuals may potentially increase their awareness of self and others, resolve emotional issues in a safe way, and enhance their creativity and cognitive abilities. They can find new ways to cope with their symptoms, stress, and traumatic experiences, as well as to enjoy the life affirming pleasures of making art.

Art therapists are professionals trained in both art and psychotherapy. They are knowledgeable about human development, psychological theories, clinical practice, spiritual, multicultural, and artistic traditions, and the healing potential of art. They use art in primary mental health treatment, and in assessment and research. They also provide consultations to allied professionals. Art therapists work with people of all ages: individuals, couples, families, groups, and communities.

Nutritional Counseling

Your mental health treatment at Bridges to Recovery integrates nutritional counseling into our overarching treatment programs. Many clients benefit from assessment of their nutritional needs and implantation of an eating plan which enhances mental, physical, and spiritual health. This is particularly important for individuals who have developed eating symptoms or eating disorders including compulsive overeating, food restriction, bulimia, and compulsive exercise.

Our model of nutritional counseling is collaborative; each individual is challenged to be curious about his or her own relationship to food and to consciously explore what is learned and felt within the primary experience of feeding and being fed.

Gradually, one discovers how emotional tendencies were defined while dependent on others for survival and sustenance, and it becomes possible to detect areas in which early thoughts and feelings about food produce symptoms and struggles with food during adulthood.

By restructuring to care for basic nutritional needs, clients can consciously improve their food choices, with a goal of making healthy and flavorful choices for a lifetime of healthy and enjoyable eating.

Rock Climbing

Rockreation is an indoor rock climbing facility in West Los Angeles with 10,000 square feet of rock climbing surface. Bridges to Recovery utilizes Rockreation to help clients build confidence in themselves; trust in others, and to overcome fears. When a client rock climbs (with a safety harness), someone is at the other end helping to keep them safe, arresting their falls, and lowering them to the ground. It takes a great deal of trust to have one's safety in another's hands.

Rock climbing is both a physical and mental challenge. A 30 foot wall builds confidence, teaches balance and coordination skills, enhances body awareness and concentration, and allows confrontation of one's fears. Rock climbing strengthens the fortitude of both the mind and the body.

Supervised Aerobic and Weight Training

Learning from exercise professionals enables our clients to make decisions based on the facts of physiology, not fads or myths. A physically fit lifestyle is highly beneficial in recovery from emotional and behavioral difficulties. If the body is functioning well due to a healthy lifestyle the client feels better physically and gains heightened self-esteem.

Yoga

Yoga aims to create an experience of overall well-being: mental, physical, emotional, and spiritual. It reduces anxiety and depression, calms the nervous system, and improves the quality of sleep. Depending upon each individual’s mental health treatment needs and level, the yoga practice can emphasize an energizing "flow" style yoga or a calming and meditative slow deep stretch. Sessions incorporate physical postures, breath awareness, and visualization. Each class is taught with precise alignment instruction, and through a safe sequence of poses, leads to a blissful guided relaxation and meditation.

People who suffer addictive behavior, depression, anxiety, trauma, or eating disorders frequently avoid self-experience. Yoga offers individuals enjoyable tools to connect with their self--reuniting their body with their mind and emotions. While traditional psychotherapy relies on the past, yoga encourages the individual to focus on fully experiencing the present.

Participants are invited to create an intention for their practice and for their lives. Examples: to feel strength, experience peace, find clarity around a specific issue, discover self-love, acceptance, joy, etc. This intention is continually reinforced throughout the yoga practice.

Whether brand new to yoga or an experienced practitioner, participants in yoga achieve: greater self-confidence, peace, greater care and respect for the body, strength, hope, and overall well-being and self-awareness.

Meditation

Derived from the yogic tradition, Yoga Nidra is a deep relaxation technique and an effective adjunct to traditional forms of psychiatric and psychotherapeutic treatment. It is a systematic method of inducing complete physical, mental and emotional relaxation. Yoga Nidra is an effective therapy for both recent and long standing psychological problems. Two of the benefits of practicing Yoga Nidra are reduced anxiety levels and improved sleep; these effects enable patients to reduce dependency on drugs and increase self-reliance. Yoga Nidra lasts for approximately 2040 minutes. Instructions are given verbally by the teacher. The only requirements during the practice are to (I) remain aware (refrain from sleep), (II) listen to the voice of the instructor and (III) move the mind very rapidly according to the instructions.

Yoga Nidra is done lying on the back with the legs and feet comfortably apart, the arms are alongside the body with the palms facing upwards. The eyes are closed. Comfortable clothing is worn and a light blanket is used. The body is given a chance to settle.

Each student makes a resolution related to something that is very important in his/her life. It is stated in a short positive sentence such as, "I will become healthier" or "I am making myself strong and able to overcome all obstacles". The resolve is repeated several times during the practice. The same resolution is used every time Yoga Nidra is practiced.

Without moving the body, one is guided to bring his/her awareness to various parts of the body in rapid succession starting with the right hand thumb. The sequence is always the same and creates a corresponding relaxing effect in the cerebral cortex area of the brain.

The awareness is then directed to the natural breath. First the breath is observed for some time. Then the breath is counted mentally which deepens the state of relaxation.

The practice ends by repeating the resolution and gradually bringing one’s awareness back to a normal waking state.

The routine can also be done as a prelude to sleep for those who have difficulty sleeping. Yoga Nidra is a simple, enjoyable and profoundly transformative technique.

Massage Therapy

Massage therapy is more than just a luxury. It has a wide range of effects and benefits on the body and mind.

Beyond the obvious muscle relaxation lies increased circulation of blood and lymph as well as deeper and easier breathing, healthier, better nourished skin, increased ease and efficiency of movement and a strengthened immune system.

It also reduces mental stress and anxiety, helps with a greater ability to monitor stress signals and respond appropriately, an increased capacity for clearer thinking and gives a greater ease of emotional expression.

Massage therapy can be a powerful tool on one's journey to healing.

Every patient at Bridges to Recovery enjoys a weekly massage session during their mental health treatment.

Acupuncture

Acupuncture is a healing art with origins that date back over 2000 years. The unique Chinese perspectives of life helped to create a medicine that works with body, mind and spirit and makes it an ideal adjunct therapy for emotional imbalance. Not only does it address the physical symptoms of the body but can work with the emotional state of the person.

Acupuncture is widely used and an accepted form of treatment for addiction and the emotional states that ensue.

12 Step Meetings (off site)

Addiction is a disease that can be treated over time through a number of ways: therapy, 12-step programs, and holistic healing. Most importantly, the community is an integral step in the recovery process. At Bridges to Recovery, anyone wishing to attend 12-step meetings is afforded that opportunity three times per week.