The treatment for any mental health issue requires a thorough initial assessment at intake. The assessment reviews your history, symptoms, patterns, and current stressors.

A board-certified psychiatrist makes your diagnosis based on their conversation with you during the intake assessment. They may also run some supporting tests to rule out medical causes of mental health symptoms.

Whenever a pharmacological approach to treatment is appropriate, they oversee the dosage and your body’s response to the drugs so that any dose adjustments can be made.

Additionally, we realize that your symptoms can escalate without warning. Therefore, crisis intervention and stabilization services are built into all mental health treatment programs.

Mental health care at A Better Life Recovery is delivered through evidence-based therapies. Some commonly used modalities include:

• Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), which helps you identify negative thoughts and behaviors about your life and change them into positive ones.
• Dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) to teach you emotional regulation skills that make distressing thoughts tolerable.
• Eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR) is used to process past traumatic memories through bilateral tactile stimulation.
• Exposure therapy for those with specific phobias.
• Cognitive processing therapy (CPT) through which you replace rigid, self-blaming narratives with more balanced perspectives.
• Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy that encourages self-awareness.
• Acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) to teach you values-based living.

The therapies we use are just as important as how they’re delivered. All evidence-based modalities are offered through multiple therapy formats.

Individual therapy sessions provide one-on-one space for focused work at your own pace. It is needed for more personal processing of trauma, depression, anxiety, and long-standing behavioral cycles.

The same therapies can be used in a shared setting among a group of people who offer each other strength and connection. Groups normalize the experiences among people, and you get to practice new skills with your peers in real time.

If your mental health symptoms have affected your family, you’ll also get family therapy. It helps your loved ones understand mental health through a clinical lens so they can support you better.

We also offer skills-based recovery groups for practical skills based on CBT, DBT, and mindfulness-based therapies. In these spaces, you learn coping strategies that can be applied immediately.

Mood disorders are mental health conditions that cause severe, persistent changes in a person’s emotional state. They can influence your energy, motivation, sleep, thinking patterns, and relationships.

We treat the following DSM-5 recognized mood disorders with structured, evidence-based care:

• Major depressive disorder (MDD): This is a state of persistently low mood, loss of interest or pleasure, changes in sleep and appetite, fatigue, and feelings of worthlessness or hopelessness that interfere with daily functioning.
• Persistent depressive disorder: Also known as “dysthymia,” this is a chronic form of depression with less intense symptoms.
• Bipolar I disorder: This condition causes episodes of full mania, which include elevated mood, decreased need for sleep, impulsivity, and impaired judgment, that alternate with periods of depression.
• Bipolar II disorder: Symptoms include hypomanic episodes that are less severe than full mania, with significant depressive episodes that tend to dominate the course of the illness.
• Cyclothymic disorder: This causes ongoing mood fluctuations between mild depressive and hypomanic symptoms.
• Seasonal affective disorder (SAD): An emotional state in which depressive symptoms worsen during the fall and winter months.
• Postpartum depression: Depressive symptoms after giving birth, which cause difficulties bonding with the newborn.
• Premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD): Where severe mood symptoms are tied to the menstrual cycle.
• Disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD): A condition that is diagnosed in children and adolescents and causes frequent emotional outbursts.

Trauma and post-traumatic stress can cause biochemical changes to your brain. A Better Life Recovery provides structured, trauma-informed care for the following trauma-related disorders:

• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)
• Acute stress disorder
• Reactive attachment disorder (RAD)
• Disinhibited social engagement disorder
• Adjustment disorder

The diagnoses above are based on specific symptoms and their duration. However, trauma itself can be of different types. We take a detailed history to identify which of the following types of trauma you have suffered through:

• Childhood trauma in your early years due to the negligence of caregivers
• Psychological trauma coming from threats, humiliation, etc
• Physical abuse
• Emotional abuse where someone has consistently disregarded your efforts
• Sexual abuse
• Domestic abuse, which in most cases combines many of the other types

We use evidence-based trauma therapies that help your brain offload the traumatic memories. Our approaches include EMDR, trauma therapy, cognitive processing therapy, and exposure therapy, among others.

Personality disorders are long-standing patterns of thinking and relating to others. Unhealthy patterns cause distress to you as well as those around you; therefore, they must be treated.

The American Psychiatric Association groups personality disorders into three clusters: A, B, and C. We treat the following conditions across all three clusters:

• Cluster A (odd, detached, or distrustful thinking patterns):
• Paranoid personality disorder
• Schizoid personality disorder
• Schizotypal personality disorder

• Cluster B (disorders associated with emotional intensity and impulsivity):
• Borderline personality disorder (BPD)
• Antisocial personality disorder
• Narcissistic personality disorder
• Histrionic personality disorder

• Cluster C (disorders with anxiety and avoidance as core features):
• Avoidant personality disorder
• Dependent personality disorder
• Obsessive-compulsive personality disorder (OCPD)

Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) is misunderstood by a lot of people as a preference for cleanliness. However, the actual diagnosis is based on intrusive, unwanted thoughts that create intense anxiety in an individual.

OCD can consume hours of your day. Therefore, our OCD treatment program aims to break your obsession-compulsion cycles through exposure-based strategies that train your brain’s response to uncertainty.

In addition, we treat several related disorders that share similar features of compulsive behaviors and preoccupations. These include:

• Body dysmorphic disorder: When you have a fixation on perceived flaws in physical appearance that either do not exist or others do not notice.
• Hoarding disorder: A difficulty discarding your possessions regardless of how valuable they are.
• Trichotillomania: Also known as hair-pulling disorder, with recurrent urges to pull your hair from the scalp or body.
• Excoriation disorder: Also known as skin-picking disorder.

Besides the mental health conditions discussed above, we treat the following groups of disorders.

Eating Disorders

People with eating disorders have a complicated relationship with food. Some people struggle with excessive eating, while others restrict their food intake to a point where it becomes dangerous.

We treat eating disorders, keeping in mind the fact that, besides physical manifestations, eating disorders lead to many emotional symptoms as well.

Our eating disorders treatment programs cater to:

• Anorexia nervosa
• Bulimia nervosa
• Binge-eating disorder
• Avoidant/restrictive food intake disorder (ARFID)

Neurodevelopmental Disorders

In neurodevelopmental disorders, people often have difficulties with attention, communication, emotional regulation, and behavior from an early age.

For instance, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) causes inattention, impulsivity, and hyperactivity that interfere with your focus.

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) includes a range of developmental differences in social communication and repetitive behaviors, although the specific symptoms are different from person to person.

Tic disorder, or Tourette’s Syndrome, produces sudden, involuntary motor movements or vocalizations. These issues typically increase in times of stress.

We have specialized treatment programs for all these disorders.

Psychotic Disorders

Psychosis is the loss of contact with reality. During psychotic episodes, your thoughts and perceptions no longer line up with what is actually happening around you, and you may experience hallucinations, fixed false beliefs, disorganized thinking, and severe confusion.

The residential mental health program at A Better Life Recovery treats people experiencing psychotic disorders with an emphasis on early stabilization. We run antipsychotic medication management under board-certified psychiatrists, too.

Psychotic disorders treated at our facility include:

• Schizophrenia
• Schizoaffective disorder
• Substance/medication-induced psychotic disorder
• Delusional disorder

Grief, Loss, and Life Transitions

Many of us don’t have a mental health diagnosis, but a rough patch in life can still make us feel unstable. In those moments, it’s often best to get clinical support so you can transition back to a normal life.

We provide temporary mental health support for people who go through tough periods, such as:

• Changes in identity
• Death of a loved one
• Bereavement
• Relationship distress, such as breakups, divorce, or family conflict
• Career changes
• Relocation
• Health challenges

Self-Harm and Crisis

If, for whatever reason, you are close to hurting yourself by any physical means, you need immediate help. This includes non-suicidal self-injury (cutting, burning, or hitting the body), or suicidal behaviors of planning and attempting to end life.

You can call or text at 989, theSuicide & Crisis Lifeline, for free, confidential support available 24/7 in the U.S.

Or, reach out to A Better Life Recovery, and we will provide you with emergency support and stabilization services to reduce your risk of harm.

A Better Life Recovery also offers specialized programs for distinct patient populations. For instance, our dual diagnosis and co-occurring disorder treatment is for people managing both mental health conditions and substance use.

A study reports that over 50% of individuals with a mental health disorder also have a substance use history.³ Both mental health and addiction feed into one another, so we try to treat them together through integrated psychiatric care.

We also offer LGBTQIA+ tailored treatment. The LGBTQ+ population is disproportionately affected by mental health issues because of identity-related discrimination.⁴ This program creates space where clients don’t have to explain themselves.

Our first responder tailored treatment supports those working in high-stress roles, such as those in law enforcement, fire services, EMS, and emergency response.

In addition, we offer an anger management group for people struggling with irritability and anger outbursts that affect their relationships.