Plural Healthcare is a mental health resource for you and your loved ones. We provide therapy and intensive outpatient care (IOP) in the St. Louis area. If you’re dealing with depression, anxiety, PTSD, trauma, or other serious mental health challenges that stop you from living a meaningful life, our IOP programs can help.
Let’s Take the Next Steps Together
We understand taking the first step is difficult. There is no shame or guilt in asking for help or more information. We are here to support you in any way we can. If you’re looking to see if IOP treatment is right for you, or just want more information, contact us now:
At Plural Healthcare, you are the center of care, with our treatment team members advocating for you. Our team is here to make sure you’re given all the tools needed to reach your goals:
- Group Support for Your Mental Health
- Get Help From a Clinical Team That Cares
- The IOP Treatment Plan: Your Blueprint for Success
- Individual Therapist and Psychiatrist Visits
Our Intensive Outpatient Program is proudly CARF Accredited. And you can expect the highest quality of care from start to finish (and beyond).
Group Support for Your Mental Health
When we’re at our most difficult points, it’s OK to seek out the support of others. Together we’re stronger. Being a part of a supportive group can provide you strength, courage, and insight no matter what challenges you’re going through.
Individuals in IOP groups face various struggles, such as:
- Major Depression
- Crippling Anxiety
- Past Trauma
- Current Life Crisis
- Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Substance Use Disorder (as a secondary diagnosis)
No one should have to face any of these challenges by themselves. It’s not just about what a mental health provider can do for you. It’s also about how regular people – who are struggling with similar problems – can help each other along to a more peaceful place.
Being in a group lets you hear feedback from others – and gain a new perspective. You’ll have the opportunity to hear the stories of others. By hearing how someone reacts to their own situation, it’s likely you’ll gain insight about your situation too. And you may discover new things about yourself, your mindset, or behavior patterns that you couldn’t see before.
At first, being in a group may not seem ideal to some people, especially those with social anxiety. But keep in mind that your group will be led by a trained therapist. They’ll be there to lead the group and to support you every step of the way.
Group sessions are 3 hours each, and are typically 3 days per week in the evenings. We keep our groups fairly small – anywhere from 4-10 individuals. This ensures the group therapy is effective, yet it doesn’t overwhelm our group participants.
Get Help From a Clinical Team That Cares
Our program providers have spent decades treating just about every condition known to hold someone back from reaching their potential. You can be assured that nothing will be overlooked or misunderstood.
Emily Vallarta
Our lead therapist, Emily Vallarta LPC, has 15+ years experience helping people heal from wide range of mental health challenges. With a masters in Professional Counseling from Lindenwood University, Emily has provided individual therapy to private clients; done crisis intervention and counseling in emergency rooms across St. Louis; helped local hospitals build new departments and training programs; and served as Lead Therapist for SSM’s mental health IOP center (and now at Plural Healthcare).
Emily focuses on treating and honoring the individual as a whole and unique being… and helping produce fast results for distress relief. Through her years of experience in IOP programs she’s developed a unique and proven IOP curriculum – adapting concepts from multiple specializations such as CBT, DBT, Rational Emotive Therapy, Humanistic Therapy, Person-Centered Therapy, and more. She conducts groups that allow for deeper processing and where members can learn from one another in an inclusive, supportive, and even… at times… fun environment.
As she describes her work:
“Mental health exists as presently for every human being as does their physical health. My goal is to make mental health ideas accessible and non-threatening – to give people a working knowledge of general human psychology without feeling accused or judged. With greater awareness, we can be less reluctant to admit that we could all use some self-reflection, some work on communication, or some shifts in our thinking. We can start letting go of feeling a need to be “fine” or “tough” and work toward actually feeling peaceful, open, excited, happy.”
Hannah Baker-Boyd
Hannah is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, who received both undergraduate and graduate degrees from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Hannah has served folks from birth to end of life in three of St. Louis’ major hospital systems, provided therapeutic parent coaching for families through a local non-profit, maintained a private practice, and has worked as a lead IOP therapist in three programs at SSM for over two years.
Hannah is committed to treating the “whole person” with empathy and authenticity. She believes her eclectic social work background positively influences her ability to work with folks with depression, anxiety, and bipolar disorders in an IOP setting. Hannah works diligently to listen with compassion, ask challenging questions, and provide accurate and beneficial information to assist group members in reaching their goals inside and outside of the group therapy sessions.
Ana Wexler
Ana is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker with extensive experience in mental health treatment. She received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Social Work from Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville and has experience in a variety of clinical settings including hospitals, crisis centers, and outpatient programs. Ana is certified in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) and Applied Suicide Intervention Skills Training (ASIST). And she has provided care to adults and adolescents in through crisis intervention, suicide prevention, grief counseling, individual therapy, group therapy, and intensive outpatient treatment (IOP).
Ana believes in taking both an individualized and a collaborative approach with each client. She works to ensure an inclusive, supportive group setting… one where clients have the opportunity to relate to one another while also receiving care and education for themselves.
Dr. Gary Becker
Dr. Gary Becker has a wealth of experience treating those who have had past trauma or who are currently experiencing symptoms of PTSD. He provided counseling for employees at Boeing, worked as a staff therapist for Anheuser Busch, and has also treated many veterans and first responders. Dr. Becker has special training and skill in working with mental health dysfunctions by discussing emotions and experiences, and then prescribing custom, holistic solutions.
Finding the right care for your mental health is important. We’re here to help you find a therapist, psychiatrist, support group or other resources you need. Reach out today:
The IOP Treatment Plan: Your Blueprint for Success
At Plural Healthcare, our approach is customized to your specific needs and wants. When you come into our program, we’ll ask you: What do you want right now? At this moment in your life, what do you want to see improved? There are no right or wrong answers. This is about you and what feels most important to you.
We use your input to create a “blueprint for treatment” – what the treatment team uses to help guide you to a better place in your life. This plan is highly structured and divided up into parts. The first part is filled out by you upon admission into the program. The second part is filled out by the therapist and coordinator after collaboration with the psychiatrist (medical director).
IOP Treatment Plan Structure and Process
When you’re admitted into the program, you’ll fill out:
- Your stated goals that we can help you achieve
- Problems you are facing (there will be options to circle)
- Your strengths, which will help you achieve your goals
- Barriers that you think might get in the way
Again, there are no right or wrong answers here. In fact, the answers may change in the middle of treatment. That’s great. It means you’re growing. The important thing is to just keep moving forward.
After you attend your first week of group sessions, you’ll have a one-on-one (psychosocial assessment) with the therapist. This will allow the therapist to get acquainted with you, determine where you’re at, and see how to get you to where you want to go.
Your therapist will then then meet with the psychiatrist and care coordinator to fill out the second part of the treatment plan:
- Goals (could be from 1-3 goals)
- Objectives (steps to achieve the goal)
- Interventions (what the therapist needs to do)
Your treatment team will also meet bi-weekly to monitor your progress, assess needs, and change goals if needed. In other words, we’re constantly looking to see how we can best support you. Reach out to the team at Plural Healthcare and find out more about how we can put an actionable plan in place to help you reach your goals:
Individual Therapist and Psychiatrist Visits
Most of the treatment will take place in a group setting – typically 3 hours per day and 3 days per week. So you, the therapist, and others in group will be have lots of time together to work on your treatment goals.
Additionally, you’ll have the option of one-on-one visits with either our therapist or your own therapist (if you are already seeing one). This gives you a chance to reflect with the counselor individually on topics covered in group, and discover how they might apply to our own situation.
It’s also critical that your therapy works alongside the medications prescribed by your psychiatrist. With intensive outpatient treatment, medication alone may not be enough you to a better place. Therapy alone might not either, in some cases. And it sometimes requires a dual approach, combined with your own efforts.
Under normal circumstances, visits with the psychiatrist for medication management will occur once every week or bi-weekly. Although this depends on where you’re at. Sometimes an IOP member may find themselves mentally in a severe place (also known as “decompensation”). This is not a common occurrence, but we’ll make arrangements for immediate visits with one of our clinical providers during business hours if an IOP member needs it.
Your doctor will always be involved in the treatment plan and treatment updates. This ensures that every time you come back for med evaluation, your IOP treatment doesn’t skip a beat. It’s meant to be a “flow of care” throughout, regardless of which provider you are seeing and for the particular purpose.
If you feel that you can personally benefit from the level of care provided from our IOP program, reach out to our team today and we’ll get you scheduled for a full evaluation.