Life can be challenging at times. When times get tough, it’s normal to wonder if you could benefit from some extra support. Taking charge of your mental health is a courageous step. Exploring long-term psychiatric care can be a powerful path to lasting well-being. Whether you’re navigating challenging emotions, seeking deeper self-understanding or aiming to manage a specific mental health condition, this approach can offer you a supportive and personalized journey toward growth and fulfillment. 

Understanding long-term care

Think of long-term psychiatric care as a collaborative journey toward your improved mental well-being. Long-term psychiatric care can involve working with a multidisciplinary team of professionals. This team works together to help address the diverse needs of people with mental health conditions to help promote recovery and well-being in the long run. Your treatment will be tailored to your unique needs and goals. Some key aspects of long-term care include:

• Comprehensive support — Your psychiatrist will conduct an initial thorough evaluation to understand your unique background. They’ll listen, without judgment, to your experiences, your current symptoms and your goals for recovery. This personalized approach helps ensure that your treatment plan will line up with your specific needs. As you go through your long-term care, you will be provided with ongoing support and monitoring. As concerns are addressed and goals are met, your treatment plan can be adjusted. New concerns can also be added to your treatment plan and addressed when needed. 
• Medication management — If your psychiatrist thinks you can benefit from medication, you can work together to find the right medication and dosage. After you begin medication, you’ll monitor yourself for potential side effects and the effectiveness of the medication. If you experience side effects or the dosage needs to be changed, your psychiatrist can make adjustments.After finding the right medication and dose, the focus will shift to medication management. 

In long-term care, medication management requires careful monitoring and regular communication and can also include shared decision-making between residents, families and their multidisciplinary health care team. Medication management is a journey that can adapt as needs change. Long-term medication management can help with improving quality of life, minimizing potential side effects and boosting client engagement. By becoming more engaged in their care, clients can feel more empowered and invested in their recovery. 

• Psychotherapy — Long-term care often incorporates psychotherapy. An effective and beneficial approach used is process-based therapy (PBT). It’s an evidence-based technique that incorporates the best components from a variety of therapies like cognitive behavioral therapy and dialectical behavioral therapy.

Is long-term care right for you?

The goal of long-term psychiatric care is to help promote and maintain your mental health, stability and overall well-being over an extended period of time. It can help you foster resilience, increase self-awareness and build the skills you need to navigate the challenges of life more effectively before they have the chance to escalate into significant issues. Long-term psychiatric care may be right for you if you’re looking for:

• Symptom management
• Crisis prevention or intervention
• Enhanced coping skills
• Quality of life improvement
• Long-term stability or recovery
• Medication management
• Chronic and recurrent mental health challenge mitigation
• Therapeutic support
• Holistic approach to well-being and mental health maintenance 

Another way to determine if you could benefit from long-term psychiatric care could be by mental health condition. Long-term psychiatric care can be beneficial for conditions like:

• Mood disorders — Conditions like major depressive disorder or bipolar disorder can have a significant impact on your daily life. Long-term care can provide you with ongoing support, medication management and therapy to help you manage your symptoms, learn healthy coping skills and maintain your overall emotional well-being.
• Anxiety disorders — Anxiety disorders like generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder and panic disorder can manifest in a variety of ways. Therapy techniques like process-based therapy can help you learn how to identify your triggers, understand the root causes of your anxious thoughts and develop strategies to effectively manage your anxiety.
• Trauma — Experiencing trauma can have a lasting impact on your mental and emotional health and lead to the development of conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder. Long-term care can provide you with a safe space to process past experiences, address any unresolved feelings you may have and help you develop healthy coping skills to move forward with your life.
• Personality disorders — Personality disorders can involve inflexible patterns of thinking, behavior and emotional responses. Personality disorders include conditions like borderline personality disorder, narcissistic personality disorder, avoidant personality disorder or histrionic personality disorder. If you are struggling with any of these conditions, process-based therapy can help you develop greater self-awareness, improve your interpersonal relationships and cultivate healthier ways of interacting with the world. 

It’s important to remember that this list isn’t exhaustive. Long-term psychiatric care can be beneficial for individuals who struggle with a variety of other challenges too, from eating disorders to substance use disorders to complicated grief. 

Taking the first step 

Investing in your mental health is a powerful act of self-care. Taking the first step to seeing if you could benefit from long-term psychiatric care is a deeply personal choice. If you need guidance on getting started, you can:

• Reach out to a health care provider — You can discuss your interest in long-term psychiatric care with your primary care physician. They can refer you to a qualified psychiatrist in your area and get your medical records ready to share with your care team.
• Find a therapist — If you’re not already in therapy, you can find a therapist who specializes in process-based therapy and whose expertise meets your needs. This can be an intermediary step to long-term care at a higher level and also give you support once you transition out of a higher level of care.
• Ask questions — During your initial consultation, make sure you ask questions about the approaches used in the program. You can also ask about the therapist’s experience and credentials. It’s important that you feel comfortable and have a sense of trust with your therapist and care team. 

The decision to pursue long-term psychiatric care is a step to help your overall mental health journey. If you’re struggling with any mental health challenge or simply seeking deeper self-understanding, it can help you take charge of your mental health. It can provide you with a more fulfilling and empowered life.

Lightfully can be your support in long-term mental health care

At Lightfully, we understand the challenges mental health conditions and situations can have on your mental well-being. If you’re curious about how long-term care can benefit you, our deeply compassionate. licensed clinical experts can support you. We can provide you with long-term care that goes beyond symptom management. Through our unique treatment framework using the most effective components of evidence-based therapies, we provide you with whole-person-centered care. Our approach can address your physical, social and emotional needs. We see you as a whole person, not just your symptoms or diagnosis, and through long-term support we can help you feel empowered to manage your condition and reach your full potential.

Change is possible. When you’re ready to take the first step, reach out to our Admissions Concierge Team. We’ll take the next steps together, toward the fullest, brightest version of you.