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Substance Abuse

Teens and Fentanyl: What Parents Need to Know

If you follow news on the opioid crisis in the United States, then it’s likely you’ve heard about fentanyl. Fentanyl is the drug responsible for driving overdose death rates to an all-time record high. In 2021, over 100,000 people in the U.S. died of drug overdose, with deaths involving fentanyl and other powerful synthetic opioids like carfentanil accounting for over 70,000 of those fatalities. In a public service warning published

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teen in therapy
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

The Importance of Outpatient Treatment for Adolescents After Discharge from Psychiatric Hospitals

Let’s talk about outpatient treatment for adolescents as a standard for follow-up care after discharge from psychiatric hospitalization. Why Do Teens Need to “Step Down” Through Levels of Care? We’ll preface this article by saying that outpatient treatment is one of the core foundational elements of psychiatric treatment worldwide. In most cases, it’s both the entry point to and exit from treatment for mental health, behavioral, or alcohol/substance use disorders.

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teen girl talks with therapist
Parents

Effectiveness of Outpatient Treatment for Teens with Substance Abuse Issues

How Effective is Outpatient Treatment in The Case Of Substance Abuse in Teens? Drug use among adolescent is a serious issue in the U.S., made more serious by the emotional, psychological, and behavioral stressors teens faced over the past two years, during the upheaval caused by the coronavirus pandemic. The latest data on drug use among adolescents, published in the 2020 Monitoring the Future Survey (2020 MTF) shows the following:

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young teen male smiling
Parents

Research Report: Treatment for Teen Addiction Has Surprising Result

Does treatment for teen addiction work? Substance Use Disorder Treatment Can Reduce Symptoms of Another Common Disorder When parents seek treatment for a teen with an alcohol use disorder or a substance use disorder (AUD/SUD), their primary goal is to help their teen stop using alcohol or drugs. They understand that substance use and addiction can lead to a wide range of significant negative physical, emotional, behavioral, and social consequences.

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young teen male smiling
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Treatment of Adolescent Psychiatric Disorders Improves Social Outcomes During Early Adulthood

Early Treatment Helps Later Employment and Social Engagement When a teenager receives a diagnosis for a mental health, behavioral, or addiction disorder, there are several compelling reasons for their parents to seek professional treatment and support to help them address the disorder. First, our 21st century understanding of mental health disorders teaches us that they’re more like physical disorders than we thought during the latter half of the 20th century.

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teen with therapist on couch
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Finding the Top Adolescent Residential Treatment Centers

A Checklist for Parents Seeking Residential Treatment for Teens When your child crossed the threshold from pre-teen to full-fledged teenager, you probably braced yourself for the changes you knew were coming. You expected a range of physical, emotional, social, and psychological growth known as differentiation. The experts told you your teen would develop their own personal identity and their own sexual identity. They told you to expect changes in appearance,

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san diego beach
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

San Diego Teens and Mental Health

Does the San Diego Area Have Enough Mental Health Programs for Teens? Last summer, Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego shared a startling statistic with reporters from local radio station kpbs. At the midpoint of 2021, they’d seen a 25 percent increase in emergency room visits for acute mental health emergencies. As mental health professionals, this caught our attention: we’re both alarmed and concerned. However, if we’re being completely honest,

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teen meditates by ocean
Mindfulness

Complementary Therapies for Dual Diagnosis and Addiction Treatment

Over the past fifty years, treatment for alcohol and substance addiction – now called alcohol use disorder (AUD) or substance use disorder (SUD) – has evolved in several significant ways. The first and most important shift in addiction treatment involved a paradigm shift. Most members of the medical profession and general public now have a new view of the disordered use of substances. The dominant concept of addiction – before

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teen boy talking to therapist
Parents

Does Talking About Trauma Trigger Relapse?

Talking about traumatic events is often considered dangerous territory when treating addiction. Some people believe that cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) – the gold standard in treating trauma – brings painful memories to the surface. They assert that CBT can be dangerous for people with dual diagnosis – i.e. those both a subtance use disorder (SUD) and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) –  might not have the tools to cope with these

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depressed teen girl sitting floor
Anxiety & Mood Disorders

Depression in the U.S. Before and After COVID: Risk of Increased Co-Occurring Disorders

Decades of research and documentation show the relationship between alcohol/substance use disorder (AUD/SUD) and mental health disorders such as anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), bipolar disorder (BPD), and depression. When an individual receives a diagnosis for more than one mental health disorder, clinicians use the terms co-occurring disorders or dual diagnosis. Both these phrases mean exactly what they sound like: co-occurring disorders means that two disorders occur in one individual

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