Why We Are A Twelve-Week Program
Intensive mental health services are typically covered by insurance plans only during a crisis. It is often up to the client or the provider to prove to an insurance company that they need the service now. Once the crisis is over, insurance companies usually stop paying for this higher level of service. This system of reimbursement emphasizes payment for crisis management without addressing the underlying needs of a client that contribute to the crisis behavior.
DBTeens aims to eliminate what Dialectical Behavior Therapy considers “Stage 1 behaviors”. This process includes decreasing life-threatening behaviors and increasing behavioral skills, as well as decreasing therapy-interfering behaviors and decreasing quality of life-interfering behaviors. We also begin addressing Stage 2 behaviors, which includes decreasing posttraumatic stress and chronic avoidance. We believe that without systematically targeting all of these areas, which takes us 12 weeks, we are unable to make lasting change, and clients may revert to self-harm and suicidal behaviors when difficult experiences arise.
We address these targets with a DBT-adherent program. This means that we provide all of the required modalities of DBT, which include:
- Individual therapy
- Skills coaching
- Group skills training
- Consultation team to staff members
This is a long description of why we need a 12-week program with a beginning, middle and end. Because of this, we cannot accept reimbursement solely for urgent needs; we require commitment to fund our twelve-week program.
