How effective are residential (inpatient) treatment programs?
They can be life-saving, a complete waste of time and money, or fall somewhere in-between these extremes. In general, people utilize residential treatment when outpatient care is not working. But one of my strongest complaints of these programs is that they very often admit people into treatment immediately following detoxification (unless they do this step themselves which many do). There is now very strong evidence that once a person is detoxed from alcohol or drugs, their brain needs at least a month – and ideally two months – before it is ready to truly engage in the treatment process (e.g., groups, individual therapy sessions). During this time, neuroimaging studies have shown the brain regains significant cognitive and memory function necessary for treatment success. Unfortunately, most residential programs do not take this research into consideration, and just about the time a person is being discharged from residential treatment is about the time their brain is actually ready t
