How to Access Help When Therapy Alone is Insufficient, with Personal Development Coach Mike Bayer

In the Verywell Mind Podcast, Amy Morin, LCSW, engages in thought-provoking conversations with authors, experts, entrepreneurs, athletes, musicians, and other inspiring individuals about strategies to help us think, feel, and perform at our best in life.

Listen Now: Apple Podcasts/Spotify/Google Podcasts/Amazon Music

About The Podcast

The Verywell Mind Podcast is accessible on all streaming platforms. If you enjoy the show, please leave us a review on Apple Podcasts. Reviews and ratings are an excellent way to encourage others to listen and prioritize their mental health as well.

Episode Transcript

Editor's Note: This transcript has not undergone our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors. Please note that this transcript is not a direct, verbatim transcription.

Welcome to the Verywell Mind podcast. I'm Amy Morin, editor-in-chief of Verywell Mind. I'm also a psychotherapist and bestselling author of five books on mental strength, including my latest book, 13 Things Mentally Strong People Don't Do Workbook.

Every Monday, I introduce you to a mentally strong person whose story and mental strength tips can inspire you to think, feel, and do your best in life.

And the fun part is, we record the show from a sailboat in the Florida Keys. Be sure to subscribe to the show on your favorite platform so you can get mental strength tips delivered to you every week.

Now let's dive into today's episode.

[EPISODE STARTS HERE]

Have you ever worried that one hour of therapy might not be enough to help you feel better? Or, have you ever worried that your loved one with a mental health condition or substance abuse problem needs more than just therapy? Is going to a hospital or rehab center the only option?

There are different levels of care, as we call it in the therapy world. But for some reason, you don't hear much about the in-between levels.

You may have heard of someone getting admitted to a psychiatric hospital or going to rehab or you may have heard of someone who goes to see a therapist. But those are just levels of treatment.

In between those extremes, are what we call partial hospitalization programs and intensive outpatient programs.

A partial hospitalization program offers several hours of therapy each day but then, unlike an inpatient program, people go home at night. An intensive outpatient program offers several hours of therapy several days per week as well, but not quite as many hours of therapy as a partial hospitalization program.

Some people attend these programs to get help with mental health conditions like depression or anxiety or substance abuse problems.

Here to explain more about different levels of treatment is personal development coach Mike Bayer. He's a New York Times bestselling author and the founder and CEO of CAST Centers Treatment Center. You might recognize him from the Dr. Phil show where he was a regularly featured expert.

Mike is in recovery himself and his mission is to help others who are struggling with mental health conditions or substance abuse problems.

Some of the things he talks about today are how to find quality help when you need it, how to pay for treatment for yourself or a loved one, and what to avoid when you're trying to get professional help.

Be sure to stick around until the end of the episode for the therapist's take. It's the part of the show where I'll give you my take on Mike's advice and share how you can apply it to your own life.

So here's Mike Bayer on how to get help when therapy isn't enough.

Amy Morin: Mike Bayer, welcome to the Verywell Mind Podcast.

Mike Bayer: Amy, thanks for having me.

Amy Morin: So, it is really exciting today for those who aren't watching the video, they're just listening, for them to know that you are actually here in-person. We always tell all of our guests, "Hey, come down to the sailboat in the Florida Keys and we'll record." But most people are like, "Ah, I can't do that." But here you are, you came down to-

Mike Bayer: I'm here.

Amy Morin: Marathon and you're doing this in-person with us on a boat.

Mike Bayer: And I'm surprised that this boat is not moving. It's so still. I had this false belief that doing this on a boat meant we were going to be rocking the whole time.

Amy Morin: Fortunately, we're not, because I definitely get seasick. So if we were rocking and rolling, you might not want to be talking to me right now. But one of the things I wanted to talk with you about today is mental health treatment. There are so many options available. Most people don't know they exist. So when it comes to saying like, [inaudible 00:00:46] talk to a therapist, you go to residential treatment, most people think those are the only two options, but you have made it clear that there are even more options than that. Right?

Mike Bayer: Yeah, outpatient treatment works and outpatient treatment means getting more than therapy once a week. So outpatient can mean getting nine hours of therapy, including group, or it could be up to 30 hours, which would be called a PHP program. And IOP and residential have the same success rates. There's no variance in terms of going away to get well versus getting well in your hometown.

Amy Morin: Which I think is a huge misconception. People think you need to go away and like that's the real treatment. Maybe if you are struggling a little bit, you see a therapist. If you're struggling a lot, you go to residential treatment. But that's not necessarily the case. Right?

Mike Bayer: No, I mean, I think there is a huge gap in between, and an outpatient is the best solution if somebody can do it and doesn't need to be in a contained 24/7 environment. Because if you're able to do it on an outpatient basis, you're navigating life on life's terms and you are navigating everything that's occurring that could be a trigger when you left an inpatient and went home. So, it is a really good resource for people who need more, but I do think that in-person outpatient is best because connection, relationships, friendships are such a part of getting well.

Amy Morin: And so if someone comes to your program and it's so many hours per week, do you just talk about your feelings, do you teach them skills? What do they get out of it?

Mike Bayer: Yeah, so we have a model. About eight years ago, I just assumed therapy was getting lazy, and what I mean by that is everything at most outpatient or even inpatient facilities is process groups. You process what happened last night, you are processing what happened today. Maybe you are getting some specialized therapy during the week, but you are basically just processing your life. What we have done is we created what is called the solid alignment model, and it works whether someone's struggling with depression, anxiety, or addiction. And so every week is a different theme. So one week is about meaning and purpose. So whether you're struggling with depression or addiction, redefining what meaning and purpose look like in your life, and you do process some of what goes on for your life because it is important, but our goal is to grow, not just talk about what is happening today. So, another week is about your home life. What does it look like today? Work and play. And overall, just creating a really strong evidence-based program that's more than a therapist coming in and going,"What's happening today?"

Amy Morin: And how many weeks do people stay with you?

Mike Bayer: About eight weeks.

Amy Morin: Okay.

Mike Bayer: Yeah. The average person who stays with us eight weeks, and then they are able to go down to what's called OP and get a few sessions a week. And then we have a, once someone goes through our program, they are in our for life alumni group that is online every Monday so that they always can connect back in and be connected to us.

Amy Morin: And for our listeners who don't know, there is intensive outpatient programs. It's got to be in all 50 states these days.

Mike Bayer: There is.

Amy Morin: There's a lot of them, right?

Mike Bayer: Yeah.

Amy Morin: But why do you think it is we don't hear about this? When I come across people who find out that that is even available, most people are like, "Really?"

Mike Bayer: I think budgets. So I think these inpatient programs, they charge a lot more. They are the ones who have commercials on TV. Or you've got more of the telehealth, which is dominating TV nowadays, or podcasts, because that's where the funding is. So outpatients don't charge as much. They're more affordable. They're not