Happy Monday and welcome to your Mental Health Mini.
This week's guest is Doctor Justin Mohat and we are talking
about pursuing intensive mental health treatment.
So for parents that have received the recommendation that
their teen might benefit from an intensive mental health care
program, what things do you look for in a treatment program to
make sure that it's a great fit for a patient?
I have a couple big things that I really wish families would
hear. 1 is just because a place is the most expensive place
doesn't mean it's the best place, and just because it's in
the most beautiful setting doesn't.
Mean it has horses, doesn't mean it'll be the best.
As horses has an ocean view, I think families can easily get
romanced by some of that because it's so scary to have your child
go away somewhere. So to say, OK, well the place is
really expensive, it looks really nice.
That doesn't necessarily mean high quality care.
The other thing I would say is be wary of programs that promise
everything. If you look at their materials
and they say they basically treat everything under the
spectrum with evidence based treatments, it's highly unlikely
that they really are that specialized in all of those
different things. I much prefer to have a program
that says we do this and this very well and this is our
modality. You want to ask them what
modalities of treatment they use and they should be able to
answer that clearly. And so you want to educate
yourself ahead of these conversations about your kids
diagnosis and what the best treatments are for that and then
ask very pointed questions. Honestly, I think the most
important things from my perspective are that they
involve family, and that's for a couple reasons.
One is if you are a program that doesn't communicate with
parents, that doesn't involve parents and family in treatment
and you're doing this sort of bubble of something with a kid
and then you say, OK, we're done and you send them home and
you've never done anything to change the environment, then
you're setting everyone up for failure.
I think that again, evidence based treatments, but not every
evidence based treatment under the sun.
And they should be able to talk to you about what that actually
looks like and how they deploy that.
And I think the other thing is you, you want transparency.
So if you're getting any sense that they're sort of skirting
around questions and then they're not giving you very
clear answers, I would be really wary.
Yeah, I think that this may be hard and you may not get a
satisfactory answer, but it's worth at least asking what their
internal quality kind of process is and if they have any data or
statistics on the success. Of their.
Program, absolutely. The biggest thing is just ask
questions. Lots and lots and lots and lots
of questions. And if anything doesn't feel
right, ask more questions until it either feels right or until
you say you know what this is a no go I don't like.
Them. For teens, I think one of the
biggest things that I remember is just how daunting of an
experience this is. It's so anxiety provoking
because a lot of the times you don't know what to expect.
So if you could give just some basic pointers of what to
expect, whether it's like you can probably expect to on the
first day, kind of go through why you're here and and what's
happened this far. So a lot of teens are thinking
that if they go to residential treatment, it's going to a
locked hospital. And that's not what residential
treatment is and it's not what intensive outpatient treatment
is. And there is a place for
inpatient treatment. But if your family is trying to
get you help in a voluntary way at a specialized program, it's
going to be an unlocked unit. Everyone's there voluntarily.
It's going to be, again, if it's the right program, it's going to
be kids your age, right? You know, they are going to want
to understand what's bringing you in.
They're going to want to understand if there are safety
concerns, depending on why you're going into treatment.
But even if you're going in for something that's not about self
harm or suicidality, they're going to be asking you those
questions. They're going to want to know,
they genuinely are going to want to try and understand what the
path has been to get you to that place and to come up with goals
and targets for treatment. And if safety is a primary
concern, they're going to spend a lot of time on that first day
assessing safety, coming up with safety plans and trying to sort
of identify in the program what are the resources that you can
use when you're feeling unsafe. I think their parents are really
important partners and really important people in their lives.
We're going to want to involve them, but I'm not here to do the
bidding of your parents. I'm here to help you and figure
out what's causing you suffering and struggling and trying to
affect change so that you can lead your best life.
And I often say to kids, if I think they have a sense of
humor, that in the first visit that my real main goal is that I
never see them again. Yeah, yeah.
Like, I'm not here to take your money.
I'm not here to sort of see you forever.
I'm not here just to put you on medication.
In fact, I'm only going to put you on medication if it is
really indicated and necessary and that your best interests are
sort of like the guiding light, the true north of.
I think it's really hard to understand that and feel that
when you're in a dark. Place.
And therapy may be uncomfortable at times, but you you need an
objective outside person who can tell you what it is, when it's
happening and that you can develop a rapport with.
That is a true back and forth and trust.
If you enjoyed this week's mental Health Mini, you can
listen to the full episode. It is episode 136 featuring
Doctor Justin Mohat. A link to the full episode is in
the show notes. And as always, make sure to
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