Austin Lakes Hospital’s Intensive Outpatient Program (IOP) offers comprehensive outpatient mental health treatment for adults and seniors who do not require 24-hour care. Participants attend group therapy during the day or evening and return home after programming. Located in Austin, Texas, our outpatient programs are easily accessible to individuals living throughout Central Texas.

Our program focuses on further stabilizing adult and senior adult mental health, providing the skillset and tools to work through mental health issues and manage symptoms. IOP is often a step-down option after an inpatient treatment program, long term residential treatment or another restrictive level of care.

IOP provides intensive oversight during the day as adults ages 18 and older participate in group therapy and other therapeutic activities to help process things like depressive episodes, loss of interest in life, traumatic events and other issues that can impact mental health.

The intensive day treatment options within the IOP program helps patients further improve their condition, whether they’re still struggling with the symptoms of depression, seasonal affective disorder, anger issues, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and other mental health conditions. 

Intensive outpatient therapy provides a supportive environment while teaching life enrichment skills. Participants are encouraged to practice the skills they learn in group as they continue to live at home and perform everyday activities in their community or work environments. The Intensive Outpatient Program empowers clients as a supportive transitional treatment following inpatient hospitalization, but it is also accessible directly from the community.

Who Can Benefit From Intensive Outpatient Care?

The Intensive Outpatient Program is designed to empower those who wish to strengthen positive coping skills to assist them in overcoming the challenges of a mental health diagnosis such as depression, anxiety or bipolar disorder. Participants in intensive outpatient care attend life enrichment sessions on topics such as:

• Enhancing decision-making skills
• Increasing self-awareness and socialization
• Learning how diet and exercise contribute to our energy levels
• Exploring coping skills and learning healthy interpersonal boundaries
• Learning productive ways to manage triggers and symptoms of your diagnosis

Intensive Outpatient Programs:

• Day Intensive Outpatient Program
• Dialectical Behavior Therapy IOP
• IOP with Elements of DBT such as CBT, ACT
• Virtual Evening IOP

Virtual Evening IOP

Our Virtual evening IOP will be two parts: process and psychoeducational. We’ll focus on skills and strategies to help group members cope with depression, mood swings, anxiety, and/ or alcohol or drug use which has impacted their `ability to live a fulfilled life. This is an open group that seeks to help individuals understand their triggers and stressors and develop healthy coping skills to navigate their world. Sessions will be held from 6PM-9PM Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. This schedule is ideal for people who are otherwise unavailable during the day time, and would prefer telehealth to in-person groups. We are not accepting BCBS at this time for telehealth services.

The group will discuss topics such as:

• Understanding mental illness and how it affects our daily lives
• Mental health stigma
• Identifying triggers and stressors
• Healthy boundaries
• The recovery process
• Effective communication skills
• Countering negative thoughts
• Safety crisis planning
• Distress tolerance skills

Therapy Program

Clients attend regularly scheduled groups based in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. These groups focus on topics such as:

• Grief work
• Coping skills
• Anxiety and depression education
• Spiritual care
• Stress management and problem-solving
• Communication
• Relaxation skills
• Recreational therapy and music therapy

As clients leave the program, our team guides each person to acquire and utilize community resources. These resources may include sessions with family, connecting a client with a therapist for individual therapy or arranging community-based mental health services.

Call us for a no-cost assessment to learn whether this program is the right fit for you or a loved one. Whether you’re seeking outpatient depression treatment or looking for ways to overcome grief from the loss of a loved one, we may be able to help you improve your quality of life.

Talking with one of the mental health professionals at our treatment center could help answer your questions. Our team wants to identify how we may be able to help you or your loved one improve daily life with our mental health services. We offer no-cost, confidential assessments 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Call 512-544-5253.

Our inpatient and outpatient programs can help individuals deal with mental illness or behavioral health issues whether they’re suffering from depression, anxiety or other disorders. If you are currently experiencing an emergency, please dial 911 or go to the nearest emergency room.