The Importance of Behavioral Health Resources

Behavior plays a crucial role in your ability to maintain a sense of wellness. While some behaviors support a functional lifestyle, others typically diminish your ability to function.

These same facts hold true if you are affected by a mental illness. Some behaviors make it easier for you to reduce the impact of your condition.

In contrast, other ways of behaving may reinforce your condition, or even make it worse.

If you suffer from mental health problems, resources for behavioral health near you are vitally important. Depending on your situation, you might get all the help you need in an outpatient behavioral program.

However, you may also need help from a residential or inpatient program. Regardless of your situation, the right treatment approach will support an effective and lasting recovery.

What Is Behavioral Health

What Is Behavioral Health

Most people are familiar with the term mental health. However, you may not be familiar with the term behavioral health. The meanings of the two phrases are closely linked. However, they do not refer to the exact same things.

Mental health refers to your general sense of well-being, including your:

  • Emotional state
  • Your thought processes
  • The ways in which you interact with others

In other words, the term covers how you feel, the things you think about and way you behave.

Behavioral health has a more narrow definition. It focuses specifically on the ways you act, both by yourself and in the company of others. Together, your behaviors, thoughts and emotions form of cycle of well-being.

Emotions and thoughts that promote a sense of wellness tend to lead to healthy behaviors. On the other hand, thoughts and emotions that harm your sense of well-being tend to lead to unhealthy behaviors.

This is especially important for people affected by mental illness. Why? Mental health conditions are known for their damaging effects on how you think and feel. In turn, these effects contribute to damaging behavior.

Unless you get help to recover, you may find yourself stuck in a worsening spiral of harmful feeling, thought and action.

What Happens In Behavioral Health Facilities in Your Region

Quality behavioral health facilities in your region will support your recovery in a variety of ways. Primary support may take the form of psychotherapy and/or medication. In addition, you may also have access to additional recovery resources.

Psychotherapy

Psychotherapy is common in the treatment of mental illness. Today, that treatment often focuses on issues related to your behavior. This behavioral approach has several main goals.

First, it seeks to help you understand why you do certain harmful things. It also helps you understand exactly how these behaviors affect your day-to-day life.

Behavioral therapy builds on this foundation by showing you how to change. Since your behaviors are connected to how you feel and think, that change applies to all three areas.

In addition to learning how to develop new habits, you receive practical help turning these habits into reality.

Most people with a mental illness will benefit from a behavioral approach called cognitive behavioral therapy, or CBT. Your available options may also include methods such as:

Medication

Medication

There are medications designed to treat essentially all forms of mental illness. These medications impact every aspect of your mental health.

Inside your brain, they support health-promoting feelings and thoughts. And when these feelings and thoughts are present, your behaviors also change for the better.

The types of medication available to you will depend on the nature of your illness. Choices also depend on:

  • The details of your personal background
  • The specific kinds of symptoms affecting you
  • Your response to the effects of a given medication

Medications used most often include antidepressants, mood stabilizers, anti-anxiety-meds and antipsychotics.

Further Behavioral Health Resources

A range of other services often accompany primary behavioral health care. The list of these further behavioral health resources includes:

  • Comprehensive case management to guide your treatment
  • Help for suicide prevention
  • Professional counseling on diet and exercise
  • Educational services that explain the effects of mental illness

Features of Outpatient Behavioral Health Near You

The definitive feature of outpatient behavioral health near you is where you stay during treatment. This kind of care gives you the freedom to live at home. While enrolled, you go through treatment at scheduled times in your chosen facility. Otherwise, you can continue to maintain your daily routine.

Overall, there are three levels of outpatient care:

Standard programs provide a few hours of treatment each week. Intensive outpatient programs provide nine to 19 hours of weekly treatment. In partial hospitalization, you receive treatment at least 20 hours a week.

The level of care appropriate for you depends on the seriousness of your symptoms. If you have a few mild symptoms, you may only need standard treatment.

For more numerous and/or more serious symptoms, you may need intensive treatment. If your symptoms are unstable or not fully controlled, you may require partial hospitalization.

Behavioral Health Inpatient Features

Inpatient behavioral health near you follows a live-in approach. There are two main forms of this approach: residential care and psychiatric hospitalization. Some behavioral health inpatient features are shared by these two types of programs.

However, they also differ in crucial ways. The main shared feature is that both residential care and hospitalization require you to live at your facility. They also provide you with more weekly treatment than any outpatient option.

Such additional treatment may be needed to help you cope with moderate-to-severe symptoms. In addition, the two approaches offer many of the same treatment options.

The biggest differences between residential programs and hospitals are their criteria for enrollment. As a rule, you need hospitalization in situations that include:

  • Posing a risk to your own safety or someone else’s
  • Being in the middle of an acute mental health episode like a psychotic break
  • Having any other symptom that requires ongoing medical monitoring

If you are not affected by these issues but still need inpatient care, a residential program will better meet your needs.

The Best Behavioral Health Facilities Near You

The best behavioral health facilities near you tend to have much in common. For example, they do not include unproven treatments in their program options. Instead, they rely on evidence-based treatments.

Treatments of this type have gone through rigorous study. In addition, research results show that they work for many people with a given illness.

The best behavioral facilities near you also employ experienced professionals. This means that you receive expert care at all times.

That level of expertise is a must for successful treatment. Without it, even the most proven treatment may not provide the benefits you expect.

The Best Behavioral Health Hospitals Near You

The Best Behavioral Health Hospitals Near You

The best behavioral health hospitals near you also have additional characteristics. First, they only keep you in treatment for as long as necessary. When you no longer meet the enrollment criteria, you move on to another program option.

At the same time, the best hospitals keep you enrolled long enough to ensure that you have gotten the help you need. This is crucial since a premature release can damage your recovery odds or even endanger your health.

Traveling for Behavioral Health Treatment

In some cases, you may not have access to a suitable behavioral program in your area. This means that you will need to travel in order to receive the treatment you require. Traveling for behavioral health treatment may not be ideal.

However, in terms of your recovery, the benefits of traveling may far outweigh the drawbacks. Whenever possible, make successful treatment your top priority, no matter the location of your program.

The Emerald Isle Difference for Behavioral Health Treatment

Behavioral health care is a linchpin of effective treatment for mental illness. This care focuses on the direct connection between how you think, feel and act. There are two primary ways to address this connection: psychotherapy and medication.

These treatment options are often used together. However, you may only require one of them. Depending on your situation, you may benefit most from one of the three forms of outpatient care. You may also need the greater support provided by residential inpatient care or hospitalization.

Emerald Isle Health & Recovery offers premiere behavioral health services in Arizona. We feature an evidence-based approach known to support effective mental illness recovery.

No matter the seriousness of your condition, we have options to meet your needs. Those options include residential behavioral treatment. In addition, they include multiple forms of outpatient care.

The Emerald Isle difference also includes a completely customized treatment approach. We start with a thorough psychiatric evaluation.

With this evaluation as a guide, we work with you to design a personalized recovery plan. As needed, this plan is adjusted to match any changes in the progress of your treatment.

In every case, our goal is to promote your return to a state of health and well-being. For more information on our many available programs, call us today.