High Watch campus buildings

Online Intensive Outpatient Program

Flexible, Virtual IOP Services

Social distancing & quarantines are creating more circumstances where virtual services often make the most sense for many of our guests. High Watch is proud to offer flexible, virtual IOP services to clients from across the United States.

Virtual guests receive the same quality, personalized care in virtual treatment as our in-person care. These virtual options provide much-needed additional flexibility to help us meet our guestsโ€™ unique needs. In many ways, there has never been a better time for virtual treatment to help us meet our guestsโ€™ unique needs.

If you or a loved one is struggling with the effects of mental illness or addiction, you might find the structured setting of an online intensive outpatient program (IOP) beneficial. Online IOP treatment removes the individual from all the temptations and triggers from society for a prolonged period. If a patient returns to their previous way of life immediately after treatment, they are at risk for relapse. An IOP is critical to the transition back into daily life, by reinforcing all the therapies and ideas that inpatient or partial hospitalization treatment has taught them.

High Watch holds both an evening and an afternoon IOP program. Each is three group sessions per week and the sessions last three hours. The minimum program duration is six weeks and guests may choose to continue the program beyond that time.

Goals of the Intensive Outpatient Program

In our Intensive Outpatient Programs (IOP), guests benefit from therapeutic services on a three-day-per week, three-hour-per-day schedule. Guests are able to learn about their addiction and to obtain new coping skills. IOP guests have the opportunity to utilize sessions facilitated by a licensed High Watch clinician to better understand problematic patterns as they work to maintain their sobriety in the community.

The goals of IOP are to:

  • Learn early-stage relapse management
  • Develop coping strategies
  • Establish or re-establish psychosocial supports
  • Address problems related to social, psychological, and emotional well-being
 
 

What is an Intensive Outpatient Program?

IOPs are a critical facet of addiction treatment for people who need a more intensive level of service than usual outpatient treatment. IOPs allow participants to avoid or step down successfully from inpatient services.ยน

Most importantly, IOP after residential treatment makes a positive difference. IOP patients experience statistically significant progress and reductions in relapse.ยฒ

Upon discharge, patients are ready to assume more responsibility for their recovery. An IOP gives patients the freedom to spend time with family, hold down a job, or participate in other sober activities as they continue to build and hone their coping skills.

In addition, many guests find that spending a period of time in a sober living home โ€” a structured, stable environment for people in the transitional stages of recovery โ€” is an effective complement to IOP.

  1. โ€œSubstance Abuse Intensive Outpatient Programs: Assessing the Evidenceโ€ by McCarty, Dennis, 2014, Psychiatric Services in Advance.
  2. โ€œEmpirical Evaluation of a Mental Health Intensive Outpatient Program in a Private Practice Setting,โ€ Wise, E., 2003, American Journal of Orthopsychlogy