Each year, thousands of doe-eyed college freshmen will settle into their dorms anxiously awaiting their first moments of college life. College years are a transformative, exploratory time in a young adult's life. Parental influence is lessened and teens are given the opportunity to spread their wings.

Alcohol addiction affects more than 15 million adults in the United States. While alcohol use disorder is a disease, like most medical conditions, it is treatable. Every person’s journey to sobriety and recovery is different. In this blog, we’ll help you understand how alcohol addiction treatment works so you better understand your options for recovery.

Cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is a type of psychotherapy used to treat mental health disorders like depression. It can also be used to treat anxiety, PTSD and borderline personality disorder. CBT works by identifying and modifying the negative thoughts or behaviors that cause or worsen a person’s symptoms. In this blog, we’ll discuss how CBT is used to treat depression.

Psychological evaluations are used to assess and diagnose a person’s psychological strengths and limitations. The goal of the evaluation is to create a holistic view of a person’s mental health at the time of the assessment. The results help psychologists develop informed diagnoses and provide a guide for treatment for their patients and can provide patients a better understanding of themselves.

Overcoming addiction is possible. With the variety of treatment options available for opioid dependence, patients are able to work towards recovery in a way that is tailored to their specific needs. Medication assisted treatment (MAT), the combination of counseling or behavioral therapy with the use of specialized, specific addiction medication, is one of the safest and most effective ways to recover from addictive substance use.

In this blog, we’ll cover Suboxone, a medication that is used to treat opioid dependence, including addiction to substances such as heroin.

The path to mental health is different for everyone. You might begin treatment by speaking to a physician, psychologist, licensed mental health counselor, social worker, or a case manager. If you're curious as to why you can't see a psychiatrist immediately, you might find this blog helpful.

Based on a number of factors, a psychiatric evaluation can be requested. If you were referred for a psychiatric evaluation, or you have a loved one that was, then you probably have questions on what exactly a psychiatric evaluation is and what you can expect.

We all experience anxiety from time to time. It’s a normal part of life, a function of the body’s involuntary fight-or-flight response system. Fear of failure before a big test or nervousness ahead of a public speaking engagement, for example, are natural reactions to stress. Short-term anxiety can even be beneficial in certain situations, perhaps motivating us to perform better or prepare more for specific events. 

All families experience rough patches, but moms, dads, sisters, brothers, and even aunts and uncles usually are able to depend on each other to move forward.

But what if those rough patches last for months and no one seems to think there are brighter days ahead? Then it may be time for family members to seek professional help so that they can work through their problems.

Family therapy is different than individual therapy. Typically, a counselor will meet with everyone at once and try to discover what may be at the root of a family’s problems. But how do you know when it’s time for your family to get counseling?

The names for the condition are many – dual diagnosis, co-occurring disorders, dual disorder, and mentally ill chemical abusers – but the condition is typically a combination of behavioral issues and substance abuse.

In the past, treatment of each condition – behavioral health issues and substance abuse – was done separately. Often times, the behavioral health issue was treated in one center and substance abuse was treated in a totally different center. Not anymore.

About 22 veterans a day take their own life, according to statistics released by the U.S. Veterans Administration.
The rate of suicide among veterans remained fairly constant through 2003, but began to spike following wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The number of estimated daily suicides was 19 through 2007, but rose to 22 self-inflicted deaths in 2009.