All day therapy sessions?

[Jakemje]

Has anybody ever attended an all-day therapy session that's Monday through Friday, kind of like an outpatient program? They have different names for it, I think in Canada they call it a day session, so I don't know what they call it everywhere else.

I have basically become antidepressant resistant and my psychiatrist suggested that I go to this program that is Monday through Friday and will last about 3 weeks. I was just wondering if anybody has done this before and what to expect of it.

[swgrl09]

I used to work at a few programs like this. We called them partial hospital programs (PHP) or intensive outpatient programs (IOP). You would attend Monday - Friday for 3-4 hours a day for PHP and 3 days a week for 2-3 hours a day for IOP. Most people would start at the PHP level and as they improved, drop down to PHP. Our programs were group-based and you would be assigned an individual therapist. It was also nice because you got to meet with the psychiatrist a lot more frequently to be monitored for any medication changes. They were good, solid programs where I worked.

[Jakemje]

I spoke to a guy down here where I live that is going through the program and he was telling me about the group part and telling me to type people that were in the groups. He said that in his group he had some people with anger issues marital issues alcohol abuse drug addiction depression instances of rape Etc. My question would be if mine is just anxiety and panic attacks that have as far as I know no root cause how would that help me by talking to somebody that's say a drug addict or somebody that had a traumatic event in their life?

[swgrl09]

In my experience the composition of the group changes a lot. Sometimes there will be different mixes of people and diagnoses but you may be surprised that people who are going through things that are seemingly different from you could offer insights into your situation that you may not have thought of. That's the nice thing about group. You never know who might be helpful to you. The other part of it is that group leaders/therapists should make sure that the groups are applicable to all different diagnoses as well. In our groups, sometimes there would be a mix of a lot of different issues, sometimes there would be a lot of anxiety, sometimes a lot of depression, etc. Some PHP/IOP programs are specialized as well. So we had a specific IOP that was solely for substance use. I'm not sure what the one you are looking at is for, but there can be specialized ones.