The Day Hospital
The Day Clinic offers a bridge between the respite provided by inpatient treatment, and the opportunity to receive ongoing intensive support while addressing difficulties inherent in living a meaningful life.
We provide an intensive treatment in a day care facility, which focuses on moderating intense mood / mood swings, reduces impulsive behaviour, improves relationship skills, and modifies feelings of chronic emptiness/suicidality.
Patients entering our programme remain under the care of all existing mental health professionals with close liaison and effective multi-disciplinary case management.
The Day Clinic is a service for patients with complex, multi-disciplinary needs who may require a greater level of intervention than out-patient care alone can provide.
We offer a Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) informed approach to address a wide range of psychiatric presentations including Depressive Disorders, Bipolar Mood Disorders, Anxiety Disorders, Eating Disorders, and Personality Disorders.
The DBT approach prioritises the reduction of behaviours that interfere with receiving and benefiting from treatment. The focus is on reducing suicidal, self harming and impulsive behaviours that maintain and exacerbate patients’ illness cycles.
DBT offers patients a meaningful understanding of their difficulties integrating emotion and thought (affect dysregulation). In times of stress, patients find themselves either swamped by overwhelming and unbearable emotions that result in impulsive and destructive actions (Emotional Mind), or alternatively apparently out of touch with that highly emotional state (Rational Mind).
The level of distress that patients present may require a greater level of intervention and containment that can be offered by out-patient care. In some situations, admission to inpatient care immediately suspends the current crisis to the great relief of all. However this removal from the real demands that the patient faces in ordinary life limits his/her ability to address these difficulties while in hospital. As a result, difficulties may return relatively soon post-discharge as patients return to their ordinary lives with limited access to ongoing skills based interventions.
The intensive Day Hospital Programme offers a psychiatric assessment with a specialist psychiatrist and/or clinical psychologist specific to you as an individual. The therapeutic programme is composed of group and individual therapies focusing on managing your emotions and developing practical coping strategies.
This means that you can receive an individually tailored treatment and support without the disruption of an overnight stay. You will receive treatment and support within the context of your ordinary life. We believe this is a vital aspect of effective treatment. The skills that you learn within the programme, can be applied and practised in your everyday life – where you need them.