Aurora Behavioral Health System’s outpatient services offer specialized group therapy programs for Arizona residents. Our intensive outpatient programs (IOPs) can help people who experienced trauma and suffer from the ongoing impact of a traumatic experience. We can help these individuals manage the emotions and anxiety they experience as a result of the trauma.
We provide evidence-based treatment and education that helps patients reduce the impact of trauma on their lives and daily functioning. By learning new self-regulation and coping skills, participants can learn to manage trauma-related symptoms and improve their quality of life.
During our outpatient group therapy sessions, we do not utilize traditional talk therapy methods. Instead, our group therapy sessions focus on education and skill-learning strategies. By not having to undergo talk therapy, participants can avoid recalling and reliving the traumatic experience.
Patients in our programs work on dealing with the emotions, feelings, and stress that traumatic events produce. Additionally, patients work on understanding and managing the ways that trauma impacts their daily living. We offer outpatient group therapy in both half-day and full-day schedules. Patients enrolled in the full-day option also attend dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) sessions. Our outpatient group therapy sessions are open to adults 18 and older in Arizona.
Who Should Attend?
Typically, our patients are individuals who have experienced a very stressful event. This event may involve threatened death, serious injury, or some other type of violence. As a result of the event, the individual may suffer from ongoing emotional consequences.
In many cases, traumatic events involve the individual directly. For example, the individual who struggles with the ongoing impact of trauma is the person who was the victim of violence. However, people can also suffer from second-person trauma where they witness a violent or otherwise troubling event. Additionally, people can suffer from third-person trauma from only learning about a traumatic event from others. These cases typically involve a person learning about a traumatic event that occurred to a family member or friend.
Symptoms of traumatic events can include both emotional and physical symptoms. Emotional symptoms include periods of anxiety, stress, and fear. Additionally, some victims of trauma have difficulty forming and maintaining healthy, trust-based relationships. Physical symptoms that may result from the ongoing impact of trauma include headaches and nausea.
In many cases, individuals experience the above symptoms acutely after a retraumatization event. Retraumatization involves instances when a person recalls the traumatic event and has to re-experience the thoughts and feelings they experienced during the traumatic event. Retraumatization can occur when a person has to discuss his history of trauma, experiences violence, or finds himself in a situation that is similar to the traumatic event.
As an Outpatient Program, this group is most appropriate for patients who currently have:
- Some stability and control over trauma-related symptoms
- No acute suicidal, self-harming, or substance abuse behaviors
- Some healthy coping behaviors and a few established social connections
- Have done some prior trauma work and ideally engaged in concurrent individual therapy
- Living situation should be safe, and not anticipating any life changing events during therapy
- Have an interest in group therapy, committing to program’s entirety
Examples of traumatic events
Below, we provide a list of traumatic events that can have an ongoing impact on a person’s mental health. The below events can have a lasting effect on individuals who experience the events directly, witness the events, or learn about the events from others.
- Serious accidents, such as a car crash.
- Life-threatening illnesses.
- Miscarriages or pregnancy complications.
- Witnessing violence, including family violence, robbery, muggings.
- Natural disasters, such as hurricanes, tornados, fires, and earthquakes.
- Physical, emotional, or sexual abuse.
- Military combat.
- Regular exposure to death due to a job, such as being a first responder or nurse.
- Losing someone to suicide.
- Losing a family member, friend, spouse, or pet.
Of course, the above list is not comprehensive. People can experience trauma from a wide range of events, and everyone processes events differently. An event may have a serious ongoing impact on one person, while another person who experienced a similar event may not experience any impact on his daily living.
Benefits of our trauma-focused outpatient programs
At our behavioral health hospital near Phoenix, AZ, we help our patients achieve their behavioral health goals. During our trauma intensive outpatient programs, we help patients learn to process and manage the impact of trauma themselves so that they can enjoy healthier, fuller lives after leaving our hospital. Program benefits include:
- The group will include a focus on cognitive-behavioral and psychodynamic concepts.
- The group will aid in the understanding of trauma and grief, and it’s impacts to the individual collectively.
- The group will provide self-regulation skills and explore somatic healing.
- The group will be used as a container to provide an opportunity for members to construct and tell their trauma narratives in the presence of witnesses, to give meaning to the trauma and to start the process of mourning in the context of a supportive social environment.
- The group is to provide an opportunity for individuals with trauma histories to use the protected supportive therapeutic space of a psychodynamic group to learn about and change their intrapsychic and interpersonal selves and to reconnect with the larger society as a whole person and part of the human community.
Getting started at Aurora Behavioral Health System
At Aurora Behavioral Health System, we understand the ongoing impact that trauma can have on a person’s life. Our team has combined decades of experience helping patients process trauma and manage their responses to the effects of trauma.
Getting started with a trauma-focused outpatient program at Aurora Behavioral Health System is easy. If you would like to learn more and find out if our program is the right fit for you or a loved one, please call our team at (877) 870-7012 or contact us online. Our team is available to answer questions about our programs 24/7.
If you are ready to take the first step towards treatment, you can schedule a free mental health assessment for yourself or a loved one. After the free mental health assessment, our team can make recommendations on the best treatment program for your unique needs.