Colorado Recovery is now expanding services outside our signature continuum of care. We are admitting directly into our intensive outpatient program (IOP) clients who may be ready to begin their recovery at the IOP level of care, or for those in the process of stepping down from another program. One of the offerings now available at the IOP level is our movement therapy group.

Dance/movement therapy (DMT) is defined by the American Dance Therapy Association (ADTA) as “the psychotherapeutic use of movement to promote emotional, social, cognitive, and physical integration of the individual, for the purpose of improving health and well-being.”

“The basic tenet is that emotions live in the body,” says Colorado Recovery’s movement therapist Elise Alvarez. “It’s about creating awareness around clients, and then use movement to process those emotions. In case of anger management issues, we could ask ‘Is there a specific part of your body that you feel anger in?’ Anxiety might manifest as feeling a weight in the chest.” 

By expanding the awareness of such feelings, people are better able to recognize what’s happening in each present moment and then make more informed decisions about their feelings instead of simply reacting to them impulsively.

Even without verbal information, movement therapists are able to work with their clients. According to the ADTA movement is everybody’s first language. Without using words, just moving the body “can be functional, communicative, developmental, and expressive. Dance/movement therapists observe, assess, and intervene by looking at movement, through these lenses, as it emerges in the therapeutic relationship in the therapeutic session.” 

Alvarez goes into each session with a couple of specific ideas to be able to address the needs of individual clients in each particular group. In one recent session, she had clients toss a ball to each other in a pattern – a kind of group juggling. The purpose of the little game was to make people “wake up a little bit and become alert to what’s happening right now,” says Alvarez. 

Movement therapy has also physical benefits like improving reflexes and coordination. Group games strengthen cohesive teamwork, connecting people to each other as they work as a unit. 

“Sometimes we just throw a frisbee around—just having the movement aspect makes it feel more natural and fluid. People may open up a bit more because they’re moving and not just sitting in a circle, talking.” There is also walking meditation: “Everybody is paying attention to bodily sensations while walking, catching the mind should it start to wandering off,” says Alvarez. “At the end of a session we typically share our experience with the group. Our checkout question is often ‘How we are feeling right now?’”

For more information about direct admission to our intensive outpatient program or our other services, connect with a specialist who can answer your questions at (720) 218-4068.

Schizophrenia is a mental health condition that affects about one percent of the US population. That means approximately 3.3 million people nationwide currently live with the condition. It typically starts in late adolescence or early adulthood.

“Schizophrenia is a psychosis,” explained Colorado Recovery founder Richard Warner, MD, in his book The Environment of Schizophrenia (2000). “That is to say, it is a severe mental disorder in which the person’s emotions, thinking, judgment, and grasp of reality are so disturbed that his or her functioning is seriously impaired.”

Schizophrenia can have very different symptoms in different people. They are frequently categorized as positive or negative. “Positive symptoms are abnormal experiences and perceptions like delusions, hallucinations, illogical and disorganized thinking, and inappropriate behavior,” wrote Dr. Warner in The Environment of Schizophrenia. “Negative symptoms are the absence of normal thoughts, emotions, and behavior; such as blunted emotions, loss of drive, poverty of thought, and social withdrawal.”

The onset of schizophrenia usually occurs between the ages of 16 and 30.

“Onset of schizophrenia before the age of 14 is rare, but when it does begin this early it is associated with a severe course of illness. Onset after the age of 40 is also rare, and is associated with a milder course,” wrote Dr. Warner.

Schizophrenia researchers have long been puzzled about why the illness normally begins in adolescence when important risk factors, such as genetic loading and neonatal brain damage, are present from birth or sooner. Some experts suspect that the natural and adaptive process of synaptic elimination in the brain during childhood—if excessive—could be a factor in the development of schizophrenia.  

“We now know that, for people with schizophrenia, this normally useful process of synaptic pruning has been carried too far, leaving fewer synapses in the frontal lobes and medial temporal cortex,” Warner wrote. “In consequence, there are deficits in the interaction between these two areas of the brain in schizophrenia which reduce the adequacy of working memory.”

There is wide variation in the course of schizophrenia as well. 

“In some cases the onset of illness is gradual, extending over the course of months or years; in others, it can begin suddenly, within hours or days. Some people have episodes of illness lasting weeks or months with full remission of symptoms between each episode; others have a fluctuating course in which symptoms are continuous; others again have very little variation in their symptoms of illness over the course of years. The final outcome from the illness in late life can be complete recovery, a mild level of disturbance, or continued severe illness.”

Left untreated, schizophrenia may result in severe problems affecting every area of life. Complications associated with schizophrenia include:

• Suicide attempts and thoughts of suicide
• Anxiety disorders and obsessive-compulsive disorder 
• Depression
• Misuse of alcohol or other substances
• Financial problems and homelessness
• Social isolation
• Health and medical problems

Doctors cannot cure schizophrenia, but it is possible to live well if you have this mental illness. “People with schizophrenia can be treated effectively in a variety of settings,” wrote Dr. Warner. 

The treatment philosophy at Colorado Recovery includes a warmer and more human familial setting; comprehensive levels of care that result in a path of self-reliance; expert staff to better diagnose and treat clients; and community engagement for connection and a feeling of achievement. 

Since Dr. Warner’s passing in 2015, Colorado Recovery has continued to innovate its treatment approach based on these core principles. The Warner model has delivered exceptional outcomes through its signature continuum of care and helped create lives of purpose as clients practice new tools in the management of their mental health disorder.

Our treatment facility provides the services needed to address schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental illnesses which are specific to each individual. Call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.

Recovery from serious mental illness requires that people with such a condition retain a sense of empowerment—a belief in their ability to take charge of their lives and manage the complex challenges of their illness.

Empowerment is essential if people with a mental illness are to overcome the many prejudices that too many Americans still carry with them: the stereotype that makes them believe a person with a mental illness is incapable, unpredictable, even violent, and worthless. 

Colorado Recovery founder Richard Warner dedicated most of his life to fighting the stigmatization of people with mental illness. Shortly before his death in 2015, Dr. Warner explained the impact of this stigmatization on treatment outcomes.

Popular television programs often depict people with mental illness as dangerously violent. A 2007 study found that 37 percent of mentally ill characters in US primetime drama were violent criminals while only four percent of characters without mental illness were violent offenders. 

It’s a long-established bias, explained Warner. Surveys from Illinois in the 1950s showed that people across the board regarded “the mentally ill as relatively dangerous, dirty, unpredictable, and worthless” (Nunally 1961). This is the stereotype many of us grew up with. Among other things, it is based on a lack of understanding.  

A 1992 study found that an astonishing 58 percent of respondents considered “lack of discipline” a cause for mental illness, while 93 percent blamed “drug and alcohol abuse” (Borenstein 1992). This is similar to blaming “lack of willpower” for substance use disorders, suggesting people with mental illness (or addiction) are themselves largely responsible for their condition.

Common misconceptions about schizophrenia include the notion that it is caused by “bad parenting,” that nobody recovers from schizophrenia, that people with schizophrenia are usually violent, and that they are unable to make rational decisions. Sadly, while being perceived as violent, in reality, people with mental illness are themselves much more frequently the victims of violent crime compared to the general population. 

Stereotyping Leads to Discrimination

The result of evidence-free assumptions about mental illness is discrimination and stigmatization. As Dr. Warner explained, many landlords will automatically reject all applicants with mental illness. No surprise then that many people with mental illness feel the need to hide their diagnosis from others. Many who could work productively shy away from applying for jobs because they lack self-confidence and expect rejection. 

Internalizing stigma is a self-fulfilling prophecy. People who accept negative labels then conform to the stereotype of a mentally ill person as being incapable and worthless. They become socially withdrawn and dependent. 

In 1961, psychiatrist Frantz Fanon made a similar point about the dehumanizing effects of colonization upon colonized people who internalize the value judgments of their colonizers. The internalization of stigma leads to poor mental health outcomes unless the patient is able to reject the stigmatization and regain a sense of power and competence.

According to Warner, acceptance of mental illness (insight) with an internal locus of control can lead to empowerment and good outcomes while acceptance of mental illness with an external locus of control (internalized stigma, controlled by others) leads to poor outcomes.

“People who accept that they have an illness and have the greatest sense of internalized stigma have the worst self-esteem and the weakest sense of mastery over their lives,” Warner said. “Insight must be associated with decreased internalized stigma and with empowerment to lead to a good outcome.” This is the Warner method in a nutshell: treatment of serious mental illness must aim at decreasing internalized stigma and empowering patients to attain a certain degree of control over their lives. 

Many studies have since confirmed a strong, negative relationship of self-stigma with hope, self-esteem, and empowerment. Part of that empowerment is shared decision-making. More than ninety percent of “people with psychosis are competent to make choices about their medications,” said Warner. Unfortunately, many psychiatrists still show only minimal interest in involving patients in treatment decision-making. 

Another important element is utilizing mental health patients as peer support. The benefits of involving peer staff include reducing substance misuse and symptoms of depression and psychosis, while increasing hope, quality of life, and a sense of community inclusion. 

Colorado Recovery has been utilizing the Warner method to empower adults with mental illness for many years now. Our program approaches mental healthcare based on a path of self-reliance through developed practiced skills. Recognizing the importance of empowerment for recovery, our non-institutionalized philosophy offers comprehensive levels of care supported by an expert medical and clinical team, engaging patients in increasing community participation. 

Our treatment facility provides the services needed to address schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental illnesses. Call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.