Therapeutic Intervention Programs

Therapeutic intervention involves using trained professionals to help individuals cope with specific challenges throughout their lives. Therapeutic intervention--in the form of individual counseling, support groups or inpatient programs--deals with issues ranging form depression to identity crisis to substance dependence. For people suffering from mental health issues, therapeutic intervention can help stop the problem and give patients tools to begin to reconstruct their lives.

Drug Dependence

• Popularized by a string of television shows, good therapeutic intervention centers for drug dependence differ significantly from the public perception of them. The Harm Reduction Therapy Center in San Francisco welcomes anyone who wants to change his relationship with substances, whether by using them more safely or reducing or ceasing use. The center's nonjudgmental, nonlabeling approach helps patients redefine their usage, and empowers them to set their own therapeutic goals. Phoenix, Arizona's Assisted Recovery Centers of America also offers help for drug dependence. Their treatment involves using modern drugs to help assist weaning slowly, and traditional one-on-one talk therapy to help with withdrawal-induced depression.

Life Transitions

• Life transitions are difficult periods of time when people have to move from one stage of their life to another. Even happy transitions, such as graduating from college or retiring, can leave people hopeless and confused. Yellowbrick, a therapeutic intervention center in Illinois, deals with "emerging adults," people in their 20s who suffer identity crises after graduating from college or receiving pressure to get married or start a career. The only center of its kind for preadults, Yellowbrick deals with the negative ways people try to cope with transition stages, such as substance abuse and addiction, eating disorders or depression. The Moonview Sanctuary in California also deals with transitions, specifically, adult identity crises. Moonview works through challenges like career changes or years of emotional self-neglect to help put the patient back on his feet.

Eating Disorders

• Women--and now more and more frequently men as well--are under enormous social pressure to define their worth by how they look. Not surprisingly, many people buckle under the pressure by developing eating disorders. The Renfrew Center, the oldest inpatient center for eating disorders in the United States, has locations throughout the country. It can help both patients and their families learn to develop healthy eating habits and develop self-esteem based on actual rather than physical merits. Other centers, like Boulder's La Luna center, help nurture a woman's sense of identity while also monitoring diet.

Depression

• Clinical depression--a medical disorder involving mild to extreme unhappiness, despondency and hopelessness--is also frequently treated with therapeutic intervention programs. Nearly every major city in the country has a program for depression, from University of Michigan's in-patient depression center in the Rachel Upjohn Building to Sevierville, Tennessee's patient-run support program for pain and depression. To find the right center, go to a therapist who can determine whether the depression is unipolar or bipolar, and ask for a personal recommendation.