Planning – some of us love it, some of us hate it, and some of us just don’t have any idea how to do it!
Part of effective mental health treatment is the development of a treatment plan.
A good mental health professional will work collaboratively with the client to construct a treatment plan that has achievable goals that provide the best chances of treatment success.
Read on to learn more about mental health treatment plans, how they are constructed, and how they can help.
Before you continue, we thought you might like to download our three Positive CBT Exercises for free. These science-based exercises will provide you with detailed insight into Positive CBT and give you the tools to apply it in your therapy or coaching.
At the most basic level, a mental health treatment plan is simply a set of written instructions and records relating to the treatment of an ailment or illness. A treatment plan will include the patient or client’s personal information, the diagnosis (or diagnoses, as is often the case with mental illness), a general outline of the treatment prescribed, and space to measure outcomes as the client progresses through treatment.
A treatment plan does many things, the most important of which include (Leahy, Holland, & McGinn, 2011; PHN, 2017):
This documentation of the most important components of treatment helps the therapist and client stay on the same page, provides an opportunity for discussion of the treatment as planned, and can act as a reminder and motivational tool.
A wide range of people can benefit from mental health treatment plans, including:
While people in similar circumstances with similar issues may have similar treatment plans, it’s important to understand that each treatment plan is unique.
There are often many different ways to treat the same problem – sometimes there are dozens of different paths that treatment could take!
No two treatment plans will be exactly the same, because no two people’s experiences are exactly the same.
While the basic components of a mental health treatment plan are listed above, there are many more possible additions to a treatment plan.
As noted earlier, all treatment plans are different – they are unique products of the discussions between a therapist and client, the therapist’s clinical knowledge, and the client’s shared experience.
Even in identical diagnoses in similar individuals, differences are bound to manifest in any or all of the following components:
The therapist and client will work together to get this information down on paper, with the therapist contributing his or her expertise in treatments and treatment outcomes, and the client contributing expertise in his or her own life and experiences.
Besides the obvious benefits that planning usually brings, there are a few specific advantages that mental health treatment plans impart to those who use them.
These benefits include:
While treatment plans are quite popular in mental health treatment, it should be noted that not every therapist or clinician will use one. Treatment plans are not necessarily required to give or receive successful treatment, but they can be extremely helpful in facilitating a smooth and hassle-free treatment experience.
Goals and objectives will vary tremendously from one person to the next, especially those facing very different problems.
If you or your client is committed to change but isn’t quite sure where to begin, this link of potential goals can spark a useful discussion about where to go from here.
Goals are the broadest category of achievement that clients in mental health counseling work towards. For instance, a common goal for those struggling with substance abuse may be to quit using their drug of choice or alcohol, while a patient struggling with depression may set a goal to reduce their suicidal thoughts.
In general, these goals should be realistic – they should be reasonable, given the client’s general experience and hopes for the future.
Objectives are basically goals broken into smaller pieces – many similar or subsequent objectives will make up a goal.
For example, an objective for an individual with extreme anxiety may be to take 10 steps outside their front door. The next objective may be to make it to the neighborhood market, or up to 30 steps outside their front door.
Meeting each objective will eventually lead you to meet the goal.
These detailed, science-based exercises will equip you or your clients with tools to find new pathways to reduce suffering and more effectively cope with life stressors.
