Intensive Outpatient Program in the Chicago Area and Gaithersburg, MD

Our mission is to provide best-in-class care to persons with complex co-occurring disorders using an integrated approach. This means challenging the business-as-usual mental health system and focusing on the long-term value we can inspire – first, by creating a unified treatment experience for our patients and their families. By ensuring unparalleled medical and clinical advice in a supportive community, clients in IOP are on the right path to achieve their recovery goals.

Our integrated model treats the whole person, targeting underlying biological, psychological, social, and spiritual causes of problematic symptoms for each patient, taking a dimensional rather than categorical approach to care. We know that even within the same DSM V diagnosis, patients have a tremendous amount of heterogeneity and don’t always have the same disease despite having the same diagnosis. We seek to identify and treat the person’s disease rather than their DSM V diagnosis. We believe that mental illness, addiction, and eating disorders are brain diseases, which impact a person’s thinking, acting, and feeling organ; that no one asks to have a brain disease; and that good treatment prolongs life, increases one’s quality of life, and improves overall health.

At all times you can expect the following from SunCloud Health:

• Group therapy to begin and end on time.
• Groups to be led by trained and qualified clinical staff. Our therapists are licensed to practice in the state of Illinois or certified addiction counselors in Illinois. Advance practice trainees are directly supervised by a licensed or certified clinician.
• Individualized care, including individual therapy and specialized programs.
• During admission, you will be assigned a treatment coordinator who will work with you to plan your course of treatment, make revisions with you weekly, and serve as your primary contact. If at any time you feel that a change would be in your best interest, we encourage you to discuss this with your treatment team.
• You and your treatment coordinator will co-create a treatment to prioritize your treatment objectives. These behavioral health plans will be reviewed continually and updated together with your treatment coordinator in weekly sessions.
• Staff who works together to communicate as a team and provide you with a collaborative, comprehensive treatment experience.
• SunCloud staff will work with your outside providers (assuming you have signed a release of information) in order to provide continuity in your care.
• We will strive to involve family members and loved ones in your care, assuming you have signed a release of information. Significant others will be encouraged to attend the weekly multi-family group.
• Staff who encourage discussion of group dynamics, or the interaction happening in the room in the moment. We are a group-based program, treating developmental trauma through exposures that occur in process and other groups. We help you to identify and explore re-enactments (patterns in how you experience yourself, others, and authority figures) during groups and use experiential learning to facilitate corrective, healing experiences.
• Staff will lead psychoeducational DBT and mindfulness skills groups to support you in learning coping skills for managing difficult feelings, practicing those skills to navigate painful emotions, and achieving symptom reduction and improve your day-to-day living experience.
• When appropriate, clinical staff will encourage exploration of deeper mental health issues associated with the onset and maintenance of your individual mental health conditions and struggles.
• Staff will make every effort to inform you at least a week in advance of any upcoming staff or group leader changes. We understand consistency is a crucial component of establishing safety and healing trauma.
• If at any time we believe the level or type of support we can provide at SunCloud is inadequate for your clinical condition or specific mental health challenges, we will work with you to make a medically sound recommendation and support you in accessing the level/type of care your condition warrants.
• We will work with you in advance of discharge to create a discharge plan to support your transition to outpatient care. For planned discharges, your treatment coordinator will speak with your identified intensive outpatient program team prior to your discharge from PHP.
• During your treatment in PHP/IOP, your team will work with you to provide medical monitoring, including a schedule for obtaining weights, vital signs, medication management needs, outpatient therapy, and random toxicology screens as needed.