TREATMENT OF MOOD, ANXIETY, DEPRESSIVE DISORDERS, PERSONALITY DISORDERS AND OTHER CONDITIONS THAT SIGNIFICANTLY IMPAIR DAILY LIFE AT LIFE HEALING CENTER

Mood Disorders
Most of us have been taught to view depression as a response to negative situations or life problems. But clinical depression represents a complex illness with its own signs and symptoms, prognosis, and treatment. Common symptoms of clinical depression include sleep and appetite disruption (too much or too little); feelings of guilt and remorse; crying jags; loss of interest in activities; fatigue and apathy; and a sense of hopelessness about the future.

In many cases, treatment of depression is complicated by post-traumatic stress, substance abuse or dependence, anxiety and panic, eating disorders, and sex, love and relationship problems, to name just a few. Life healing Center’s treatment team, with its range of skills and experience, is uniquely qualified to address these problems through an integrated, holistic plan of treatment.

Anxiety disorders fall into three broad categories. Generalized anxiety usually starts in childhood and is marked by continuous, low-level feelings of fear and dread that often result in a restrictive, unhappy, fearful existence. Panic disorder ordinarily starts in early adulthood, and features episodes of intense fear, perhaps short-lived, but terrifying and debilitating. Phobias have their origins in the “anticipatory anxiety” that surrounds the possibility of a panic attack. Phobias may be specific (such as claustrophobia) or wide-ranging (agoraphobia). Untreated phobia can be crippling in its effects.

Not surprisingly, anxiety, panic and phobia are often found with other disorders: depression, chemical dependency, post traumatic stress, eating disorders, etc. Treatment begins with a thorough evaluation by a qualified psychiatrist. Cognitive-behavioral therapy often proves helpful in building skills for preventing and managing anxiety and panic episodes. A program of spiritual support is important to restored calm and serenity. Research indicates that effective treatment of mood disorders includes cognitive and behavioral interventions that improve your ability to cope with stress and to live a full, meaningful existence. Treatment begins with an individual assessment by a psychiatrist. Medications, if prescribed, are not themselves addicting or dangerous to recovery.

To help “sustain the gains” made in treatment at Life Healing Center, client and therapist work in tandem to develop a continuing care plan that includes follow-up therapy, meditation, exercise, nutrition, and (in many cases) family therapy. Our Family Weekend Program invites loved ones to join our work at Life Healing Center, offering a new perspective on the past and renewed hope for the future.

Issues of Grief and Loss

Grief is something we all experience with the loss of someone or some thing we care deeply about. We grieve for things that have been important to us for a long time: relationships with family, close friends, significant others, beloved pets; places we have become deeply attached to. It doesn’t much matter whether we felt love for that person, place, or thing when they were lost to us – we may feel an intense, painful grief reaction after they are gone. Grief ends when we have gotten past the intense feelings to the point that we are again able to live outside the shadow of your loss. This doesn’t mean we stop feeling sad when we think about it - - only that we no longer suffer deep emotional pain.

Pathological grief and bereavement occur when we find ourselves unable to process these feelings appropriately, and as a result, experience continuing depression, anxiety, or post traumatic stress to the point where these symptoms interfere with our ability to function and enjoy life as we desire.

At Life Healing Center, our experience with emotional trauma and loss is a powerful asset in meeting the needs of persons with severe, continuing grief reactions. Through careful assessment, intelligent treatment planning, and intensive group, individual, and art therapy, we can help restore hope and engender new understanding in the bereaved individual. Skilled practitioners in healing arts such as massage, acupuncture, and body-centered therapies are available to provide support and assistance. Attendance at our Family Weekend Program assists loved ones in understanding and empathizing with the grief recovery process.

Self-Injury and Self-Harm

Self-harm, also known as self-inflicted violence, self-injurious behavior or self-mutilation, is the deliberate injury of one’s own body, causing physical damage and often leaving marks and scars.

There’s no one single or simple cause of self-injury. People engage in self-injury when experiencing psychological and emotional pain or stress and then turn to self-injury in a misguided attempt to obtain relief. Harming yourself physically can temporarily distract from intolerable emotions and can actually offer a sense of control over feelings and situations that might otherwise be intolerable. For some who experience chronic feelings of emptiness and emotional numbness, self-injury is carried out as a way to feel something, even if the result is physical pain. Self-harm can also be an external way to express internal distress and despair, for those lacking a healthier manner of communicating those emotions.

Self-injurers explain that their destructive behaviors are carried out in an attempt to:

Modulate or calm overwhelming and intensive feelings
Distract from emotional pain
End feelings of numbness
Reduce the desire to commit suicide
Maintain control and provide distraction from painful thoughts or memories
Punish themselves (some believing they deserve punishment for having good feelings, others for believing themselves to be “evil,” and still others in the hope that self-punishment might avert worse punishment from some outside source)
Expression of things that can’t be put into words (rage,, emotional pain, desperation for support and help)
Expression of feelings for which they have no label - - called Alexthymia (literally no worlds feeling), is common in people who self-harm.

Treatment for Self-Injury and Self-Harm at Life healing Center

At Life Healing Center we are not afraid to join our patients in facing the uncomfortable challenges brought about by their desire to hurt themselves. We work to both directly and indirectly bring these frightening behaviors under control by holding our patients accountable to their actions and monitoring them for safety, while gently exploring and working through the underlying reasons for this problem. Our goal is to replace negative, harmful behavior with positive and useful emotional expression. Our treatment model combines intensive individual and group therapies along with specific education about the problem and the path to healing. Treatment is individualized for each person to address his or her unique experience and challenges. Patients participate in depth-oriented core therapy groups, along with skills groups that incorporate cutting-edge therapies like Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), EMDR, Art Therapy, Equine Assisted Therapy, and Somatic therapies – each integrated to meet the specific needs of the person trapped in the cycle of self harm.

The therapeutic group work offered at Life Healing Center encourages our patients to work together as a healing community. This community-based programming proves a chance for patients to experience the nurturing support that they have often longed for but could not access or accept. Our Family Weekend Program offers an opportunity to promote healing and growth in their primary relationships.

Dissociative Disorders

Dissociative Disorders involve disruptions or breakdowns of memory, awareness, identity and/or sensory perception. When one or more of these functions is disrupted, an individual may experience problems with relationships, intimacy, employment, and personal self-care.

Dissociative Disorders originate from the emotions generated by surviving encounters that the person experiences as overwhelmingly stressful, such as traumatic events, war, and physical or sexual abuse and neglect, accidents and disasters. Dissociation is actually a healthy human coping mechanism that disconnects or separates traumatic memories from a person’s normal awareness, thus shielding him or her from the intolerable pain or fear associated with the trauma. These traumatic memories may resurface if triggered by something in the person’s surroundings, or they may remain buried in the mind and emerge instead as physical, emotional or behavioral symptoms.

Symptoms of Dissociative Disorder can include:

Amnesia (loss of memory and/or loss of time) for certain experiences
Depersonalization – feeling present, but completely disconnected from yourself and others
De-realization – perceiving the external surroundings as unreal, such as seeing objects change in size, shape or color
Identity disturbances, either feeling like you have no identity or feeling like there are several identities
Depression
Sever Anxiety – shaking, isolating, fear of going certain places or doing certain activities
Addictive or compulsive acting out with drugs or alcohol, food, spending and/or sex, love an relationships.
Chronic under-achievement, under-employment

Treatment for Dissociative Disorders at Life Healing Center

At Life Healing Center, working with Dissociative Disorders is a daily challenge. At any time it is not unusual for a significant percentage of our patient population to be healing from a Dissociative Disorder. Our treatment model combines intensive individual and group therapies along with specific education about their problem and the path to healing. Treatment is individualized for each person to address his or her unique experience and challenges. Patients participate in daily depth-oriented core therapy groups, along with skills groups that incorporate Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT), and Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). EMDR, Art Therapy, Equine and Somatic therapies are also integrated in the treatment of Dissociative Disorders.

The therapeutic group work offered at Life Healing Center encourages our clients to work together as a healing community. This community-based programming provides a chance for clients to experience the nurturing support that they have often longed for but could not access or accept. Our Family Weekend Program offers an opportunity to promote healing and growth in their primary relationships.