How do you determine what aspects of treatment I need?
Each client has personalized and specific initial assessments done by the psychiatrist, medical doctor, their individual therapist and also a certified chemical dependency counselor. Once we have this information, the primary therapist for each client creates an individual treatment plan for each client. Our treatment plans however do not remain static; they evolve and are changed all throughout the client’s stay with us to reflect the best possible approaches toward a successful outcome. In other words, we don’t just create a treatment plan at the beginning (when we only know what the client self-discloses) and leave it to self-evolve. We amend, enhance and initiate specific therapeutic systems throughout their stay as we uncover and discover more. We all work as an integrative team as well. In other words, there is no “shooting in the dark” or guess work by the treatment team. All clinicians, counselors and facilitators are involved in treatment planning and goal development.
How much time do I spend with the experts versus the assistants?
We do not use assistants. We only use licensed clinicians for the therapy and all of our group facilitators and counselors are masters level, specifically certified or specially accredited in their individual modalities.
Why choose Harmony Place, Exclusively For Women versus other institutions?
No matter what others may tell you, no one has re-invented the wheel in recovery treatment. There are however, different programs that offer different modalities. Here are the three primary things that make us “different” from other programs.
1. We are not an institution. We are a small (12 bed) facility, which means that there is no “hospital” or “clinic” feel to us. We believe that is important in terms of #2…
2. We are a fully State licensed dual-diagnosis program. What that means is that we are therapeutic based. Our program is designed to help our clients identify the underlying emotional or psychological bases behind their substance dependence. We believe that the drugs and/or alcohol are being used (or at least it began this way before the physiological / psychological addiction kicked in) as a self-medication or coping mechanism. If we don’t help our clients understand why they use them, then we will fail them in terms of preparing them against relapse once they leave our program. In other words: We can’t just take away the “self-medication” without providing our clients with tools and healthy living skills to help reconcile the underlying reason behind their use. Once we have helped them identify their emotional deregulation and its genesis, then we are able to provide them with healthy tools and positive personalized strategies to self-regulate themselves without the use of drugs and/or alcohol.
3. We are gender specific. By removing the co-ed factor and creating a program for women-only, not only have we also removed any potential “distractions,” but we have also created a safe environment which allows our clients to engage completely in their therapeutic work. By purposely designing this milieu, we have provided our clients with a protected sanctuary-type setting which promotes shared disclosures we believe would not be possible if there were men in the room.
4. Wehave also created a curriculum specifically designed to address women’s issues, which only enhances the deep therapeutic work. The trust, support and rich therapeutic opportunities supply our clients with the best possible tools with which to safely reconcile whatever issues caused them to self-medicate with drugs and/or alcohol and then learn new skill sets to help them avoid ever falling victim to a substance dependency again.
