Welcome to Redefining Roots
What Happens During a Session at Redefining Roots?
Mental health medication management is a phrase loaded with preconceptions (many of which are also misconceptions). People worry that taking medications as part of their mental health plan will numb their emotions, stifle creativity, or leave them feeling “less than” in some way. Others worry about the stigma associated with specific prescriptions and diagnoses. Still, other people are concerned that the person prescribing their medications won’t have enough information to recommend the right prescriptions, and they’ll end up feeling like a guinea pig trying out medication after medication until they find one that fits.
When clients hear horror stories like these about mental health medication management, it makes perfect sense that they would be concerned about scheduling a session at Redefining Roots. So, first and foremost, I want to provide reassurance that we do things a little differently here. At Redefining Roots, we offer integrative, collaborative, and holistic supportive therapy and medication management services. In this blog, we’re going to talk a bit about exactly what that means, and most importantly, exactly what clients can expect when they choose to work with us.
What Is Our Integrative, Collaborative & Holistic Approach?
A lot of healthcare providers use terms like integrative, collaborative, and holistic, but few of them ever take the time to explain what that actually means for their clients. At Redefining Roots, we firmly believe in changing the way that people think of medication management by offering integrative, collaborative, and holistic services. In many situations, people sit down with a physician or nurse practitioner for just a few minutes every few months, and this is the entirety of their medication management experience. It’s no surprise that this common practice leads to many of those negative experiences we talked about in the introduction. We want the experience at Redefining Roots to be completely different. That means clients may be spending a little more time with us, but that’s a good thing. That’s how we achieve our goal to be integrative, collaborative, and holistic, so let’s talk about what we really mean by that.
· Integrative – we want to be a fully emulsified part of your therapy plan. Medication management appointments aren’t just ticking a box to write a prescription. Instead, we take the time to get to know each client, their history, current therapy experience and goals, and provide appropriate, integrated mental health medication management services as part of a therapy plan.
· Collaborative – we want client feedback. The people we work with know themselves best, and we want to hear what they have to say about their therapy experience and mental health needs. We may ask questions like: Have you tried mental health medications in the past? What was the experience like? Are you open to taking mental health medications or do you feel more hesitant?
· Holistic – in addition to confirming diagnosis and helping our clients find appropriate medications to meet their mental health needs, we may also want to look at their whole body health. This can involve recommending supplements, referring out for lab testing, or encouraging clients to consider pharmacogenomic testing to ensure their mind and body are healthy and stable, so they can make positive progress in their therapy work.
What Happens During Sessions?
When clients visit with us at Redefining Roots, we won’t be rushing them in and out the door with a prescription in hand. Instead, we take our time really getting to know each client and their unique needs before we ever pull out the prescription pad. During an initial session, we want to get to know the client really well. We’ll go far back and explore their development, whole body health and mental health history, medication experiences, and more. We want to dive deep to know who the clients really are, their symptoms and concerns, and their therapy goals. This may or may not involve confirming or developing a working diagnosis. We like to talk about a working diagnosis because this can change over time. Many people present with feelings of depressed mood and isolation that indicate a depression diagnosis. Over time, we may realize that their depressed mood actually stems from an unprocessed traumatic experience or overwhelming feelings of anxiety that aren’t being managed, leaving them feeling depressed and isolated. In short, we’re not here to tick a yes or no on a diagnosis. We’re here to observe the client’s lived experience and develop a deeper understanding of their needs and how they may change over time.
If we determine that medication is going to be a helpful resource, we may provide a prescription. In other cases, we may also refer clients to physicians or other clinicians for additional testing or examinations to ensure we provide the best possible mental health medication recommendations. There may still be some trial and error because people don’t always respond the same way to medications, but the hope is that our clients won’t feel like we’re just trying out everything in the medicine cabinet until something works. Finally, we’ll schedule ongoing maintenance visits, so we can monitor progress, adjust medications or other recommended treatments, and ensure clients are making progress toward achieving their therapy goals.
Get Started Working with Us
If you’re interested in learning more, please don’t hesitate to reach out. We’ll be happy to answer your questions or schedule a session for you to visit with us online or in person. We do our best to make the process simple and stress-free, so don’t hesitate to get in touch.