Treatment
An Interview with Susanne Tarleton, Director of Outpatient Services
By Meghan O’Dell
With nearly 24 years of experience working in the addiction treatment field, Susanne Tarleton brings a wealth of knowledge, creativity, and heart to her job as the Director of Outpatient Services at Promises Treatment Centers. A licensed clinical psychologist with a doctorate in clinical psychology and a certification in drug and alcohol counseling, Susanne has been an integral part of the Promises treatment team for 11 years.
After working as a clinical psychologist at St. John’s Hospital and Cedars-Sinai, Susanne was introduced to the founder of Promises, Richard Rogg, and was asked to be the Clinical Director of Promises in Malibu, a position she held for ten years. “I could do things at Promises that I couldn’t do in hospitals, and that was very inspiring for me,” she said, explaining that she also developed the equine therapy program at Promises, which was the first in the region. “We started the equine therapy phenomenon, and now it’s standard treatment at many treatment centers.”
One of the reasons Susanne became a psychologist is that she started seeing so many other symptoms in addition to substance abuse, such as depression and anxiety. She wanted to learn more, which led her to specializing in dual diagnosis. Susanne also trained in trauma work, including EMDR and somatic experiencing. Many people who suffer from addiction have experienced trauma and turn to alcohol and drugs to self-medicate, so identifying trauma is an integral part of treatment.
Last year, Susanne was presented with the opportunity to become the Director of Outpatient Services in West Los Angeles. “They wanted the program to have a strong clinical foundation, so I was excited to accept,” she said, explaining that she’s been in this position since July 2009. “We recently moved into a wonderfully spacious building, which is very conducive to giving clients the space they need to recover. I think the environment has so much to do with how people heal,” she added.
In Outpatient Services, clients experience the next stage of recovery—the transition back to work, home, and life in general. They are taught life skills and can participate in yoga, a nutrition group, and a life coaching program. “We are preparing people for what comes next,” Susanne explained. “Clients are assigned a primary clinician just as they are in residential treatment, and they also have a family therapist,” she added. “We’ve really expanded family therapy, as addiction doesn’t just affect the individual—family members need to be just as involved in treatment.”
Susanne notes that the most important element is the client’s connection with the individual therapist. “While group is also important, clients form a connection with their therapist or counselor and that connection is what helps them throughout the program,” she explained, adding that feedback surveys show that the clients agree. “But the connection with peers and the 12-step community is also very important,” she added. “Our mission is to help people connect with ongoing recovery, because as they step down, they need to be more engaged with the outside world. They need to build a life outside of meetings, but they also need to integrate the 12-step model into their lives and use the resources we equip them with.”
Many times clients want to extend their time in the outpatient program. “They form a connection and a bond, and I think it’s because we treat the individual and give special attention to their specific needs,” Susanne said. “The staff is like a family, and the way we communicate and interact is key to helping clients. It also makes clients feel supported and comfortable. The clients know that the staff is very skilled and professional, but they’re also very human and accessible,” she added, noting that Promises provides a great deal of structure without being rigid. “That compassionate understanding is very attractive, and people will tell us Promises is like no other place they’ve been,” she said, adding that the creative, individualized treatment at Promises makes it stand out among other treatment centers.
Susanne noted that the outpatient program doesn’t just treat Promises clients—people from the community or those who have been through other treatment programs are welcomed with open arms. “Some people think we are simply the next phase of treatment for Promises patients, but we’re much more than that,” she explained. “We also have a lot of fun—we take recovery very seriously but we also know that life needs to be fun; it needs to be celebrated.”
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Certain Antidepressants Change Personality
A new study suggests that antidepressants like Paxil do more than just make people feel less sad and stressed. Such drugs may alter two key personality traits linked to depression—neuroticism and extraversion—independently of their effect on depression symptoms.
“Medication can definitely change people’s personalities, and change them quite substantially,” says the lead author of the study, Tony Z. Tang, Ph.D., a professor of psychology at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois. The findings show that “those changes are very important,” he says.
Seasonal Affective Disorder (SAD)
By Leslie Thompson
The leaves are falling and the brisk, cool air of fall is permeating the streets. Winter is just around the corner, but instead of embracing the seasonal change, you’re feeling a bit down, a little moodier, or even depressed. If this sounds like you, know that you’re not alone: Many people suffer from these same symptoms once the temperature drops. Although many brush it off as simply a case of the winter blues, seasonal affective disorder (also known as SAD) is a type of depression that occurs annually—most often during the fall and winter months.
Common Reasons Why Those Who Need Treatment Don’t Get It
When you see someone on the street, passed out, clutching a bottle in a paper bag – whether it’s L.A. or Cleveland, New York or Topeka, Dallas or St. Paul – you wonder why they don’t just get help. Ditto the reaction to the co-worker who keeps embarrassing himself at office parties, the constant drunk at bars, the relative who ruins every family gathering, or the loved one on their second or third DUI. Chances are you know someone with a drug and/or alcohol problem, or someone who also has a mental health issue. Surely, you think, this person would want to get treatment. In all these scenarios, what are the reasons why people who need treatment don’t get it?
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Easing Nightmares Can Help Treat Depression and Other Maladies
Some psychology experts say that treating disturbing nightmares directly can help relieve symptoms of depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, insomnia, and other mental health problems.
Kim Painter of USA Today writes that when Yael Levy went to the Sleep-Wake Disorders Center at Montefiore Medical Center two years ago for help with her insomnia, she found that her nightmares were also treatable. Levy knew she had conquered her life-long nightmares the night she was able to turn a circle of sharks into a ring of dolphins. “I was able to change my nightmare while it was happening,” said the 29-year-old New York City graduate student. “I had control over my dreams.”
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New Magnetic Stimulation Offers Noninvasive Treatment for Major Depression
Rush University Medical Center has opened the Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Clinic to offer patients a safe, effective, non-drug treatment for major depression. TMS therapy is the first FDA-approved, non-invasive antidepressant device-based treatment clinically proven for treatment of depression.
Science Daily reports that psychiatrists at Rush University Medical Center were among the first to test the technique. Dr. Philip Janicak, professor of psychiatry and lead investigator at Rush for the clinical trials of TMS, helped develop the therapy.
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What is Equine-Assisted Therapy?
By Suzanne Kane
According to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, the definition of equine is “of, relating to, or resembling a horse or the horse family.” It follows, then, that equine-assisted therapy involves horses. But what, actually, is equine-assisted therapy?
There are distinctive types of equine therapy, but they all involve the use of horses. There’s equine-assisted therapy (EAT), equine-assisted psychotherapy (EAP), and equine-assisted learning (EAL), equine-facilitated learning (EFL), and equine-facilitated psychotherapy (EFP).
Equine therapy is practiced around the world. Originally used to help patients recover from traumatic injuries, it then became a widely-used therapeutic method to treat physically handicapped individuals. In recent years, equine therapy has branched off into other areas – treating a wide variety of psychological and mental disorders and addiction.
Brain Stimulation May Be Effective Treatment for Severe Depression
A new neurosurgical procedure may prove helpful for patients with treatment-resistant depression. Bilateral epidural prefrontal cortical stimulation (EpCS) was found generally safe and provided significant improvement of depressive symptoms in a small group of patients, according to lead researcher Ziad Nahas, M.D. at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC).
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Why Anti-Depressants Don’t Work for Some
More than half of people who take antidepressants for depression never get relief. New research from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine finds that this is because the cause of depression has been oversimplified and drugs designed to treat it are aiming at the wrong target.
Science Daily reports that a study from the laboratory of long-time depression researcher Eva Redei, presented at the Neuroscience 2009 conference in Chicago this week, appears to topple two strongly held beliefs about depression. One is that stressful life events are a major cause of depression. The other is that an imbalance in neurotransmitters in the brain triggers depressive symptoms.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Better for Treating Seasonal Affective Disorder
Seasonal affective disorder (SAD) is a form of severe depression that occurs annually in the fall and winter seasons. University of Vermont psychologist Kelly Rohan presented the first published research study of the long-term effects of different treatments for SAD in the September issue of the journal Behavior Therapy.
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