Medical & Clinical Care

At The Plymouth House each guest has a team of clinicians and physicians assigned to their individual case. Each guest visits with a primary care physician to address their physical health needs. Every guest also has a primary therapist, case manager and a 12-Step contact. This team of care providers is highly experienced in the fields of substance abuse and mental health.

Every Client Has a Dedicated Medical & Clinical Care Team Composed Of:

A Primary Care Physician

Every Plymouth House guest will visit with our onsite medical physician. This will be an opportunity for the guest and doctor to review health concerns. Addiction can have a highly detrimental effect on the body’s organs, particularly the liver and brain. Sometimes it takes a long time for addicts and alcoholics to bring their bodies back into balance. Our primary care physician helps facilitate this.

A Primary Therapist

Every Plymouth House guest works with one primary therapist. Our therapists are world-class, licensed professionals who are well versed in treating addiction, trauma and mental health issues. Our primary therapists utilize a wide range of methods including traditional talk therapy, cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), dialectical behavioral therapy (DBT) and eye movement desensitization and reprocessing (EMDR). Each guest meets with their primary therapist at least once a week, but oftentimes more.

Group Therapists

Every Plymouth House guest participates in demographic-specific group therapy sessions on a daily basis. Usually the demographics are a men’s group, and a women’s group. Occasionally, however, there may be a breakout group, based on need, for a different demographic, such as young people. These workshops are guided by one of our staff therapists. Sometimes these sessions are educational in nature — teaching a subject pertinent to addiction recovery. Other times they are experiential, such as roll play or partner work.

A Case Manager

A case manager is responsible for helping each guest develop a personalized treatment plan for during and after the Plymouth House Program. The Case Manager regularly checks in with each guest to check up on the progress being made, and serves as the main point of contact between clinicians and family members. A case manager can also help with external issues such as paperwork for court cases, employee assistance programs and probation officers. A Case Manager is an advocate for each and every one of their clients, ensuring that every individual is building a solid path forward.

A 12-Step Contact

A 12-Step Contact is essentially a professional sponsor. For those unfamiliar with the term “sponsor” — a sponsor is a mentor who is in recovery themselves, has worked the 12-Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous and is dedicated to helping others go through the 12-Steps. Many of the 12-Step Contacts at The Plymouth House are also alumni of The Plymouth House Program, so they have direct knowledge of what individuals are experiencing throughout the course of their treatment. Our 12-Step contacts guide individuals through the first seven of the 12 Steps.

The core therapeutic methods used at The Plymouth House include:

Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT)

CBT focuses on the stories we tell ourselves about ourselves, our world, others and events. The stories we make up about such topics have a huge impact on how we feel. And how we feel generally motivates our actions and attitudes. CBT is a method of re-writing our narratives so that we can feel happier and make better decisions in our lives. CBT teaches us to slow down and question our thoughts. This slowing down process helps us avoid impulsivity and emotional reactivity. CBT has particularly been shown to help with anger management.

Dialectical-Behavior Therapy (DBT)

DBT is a type of CBT that focuses on self-destructive behaviors and thinking patterns. DBT is broken down into four main strategies:

1. Increasing an individual’s distress tolerance, teaching them to react less impulsively and without resorting to self-injury or substance abuse to dampen distress
2. Increasing one’s ability to regulate their emotions by recognizing, labeling and adjusting those emotions
3. Practicing mindfulness to increase one’s awareness of themselves, others and the present moment
4. Teaching individuals tools for bettering their interpersonal relationships and navigating conflict.

Eye Movement Desensitization & Reprocessing (EMDR)

EMDR is a method for treating past trauma. With every memory one side of our brain processes and records the facts of a situation, such as where we were, who we were with and what happened; the other half of the brain processes the emotional memory — how we felt about the situation. During a traumatic event, the brain has a built-in defense mechanism — it splits the connection between the two hemispheres of the brain. This is why a serial murderer can recount the facts of his crimes without showing any emotion. Likewise, this is why you can have a soldier who smells a fragrance in the air and his body panics, hitting the deck in fear without really knowing why. His brain remembers the emotional response, without remembering the facts of what originally triggered that emotion. EMDR utilizes external stimuli — such as flashing lights or vibrating handholds — to stimulate the two sides of the brain. An individual going through EMDR therapy alternates their attention from right to left, right to left, as they explore their traumatic memory. The external stimulus has a way of reconnecting the two hemispheres of the brain. By making our memories whole in a safe environment, we can process them and heal.

Are You Ready?

At The Plymouth House we pride ourselves on providing the best medical & clinical care possible. With a team of highly-trained professionals, we are able to provide our clients with tools to recovery from their addictions on every level: emotional, mental, physical and spiritual. If you or someone you know could benefit from substance abuse treatment, therapy and medical help, give us a call today. We are here 24 hours a day to answer all your questions, lend an empathetic ear and help you craft a plan forward. At The Plymouth House we accept many major health insurance policies, so treatment could cost little to nothing out of pocket. Contact us to find out more. The time is now to get free from addiction once and for all.