What is an Intervention Center?

An intervention center is a facility designed to help those individuals who face a personal crisis due to severe metal illness, drug addiction, alcohol abuse or someone at high risk for suicide. The primary goal of the intervention center is use therapeutic counseling and group interaction techniques to intervene before a serious problem becomes a tragic fatality. The facility is often staffed with professionals who specialize in psychology, psychiatry, social work, mental illness, human behavior, or substance abuse. The center may also retain a number of former drug addicts, recovering alcoholics and suicide survivors who desire to help through their experiences, understanding and backgrounds.

Individuals who suffer from severe mental illness who are left untreated or handled incorrectly may become dangerous to those around them or themselves. An intervention center would be equipped to help such a person and his or her family with education and preventative therapy to assist both to avoid volatile situations that may come in the future. Helping both the individual and the family understand the illness and its characteristics are one of the primary functions of an intervention center specializing in this area.

Issues involving alcohol abuse and drug addiction plague many people and can leave families in serious emotional distress. An intervention center working in concert with the family and experienced staff will prove to be a powerful tool in driving a wedge between the invading substance and the addicted victim.

A group session or family intervention may include several family members, concerned friends and a skilled therapist unexpectedly confronting the addicted individual to help them realize how they have negatively effected those closest to them in life. An intervention center using these methods to combine the concern of loved ones, tangible examples of behavior, and positive reinforcement, can be effective in helping the addict come to a clear realization of their problem.

Individuals who exhibit suicidal behavior or desperate acts of self-harm as a call for help would be another group to benefit from a professional interventionist. Severe depression, mental illness, alcohol abuse, and drug addiction can separately and collectively lead to suicide, which obviously brings the importance of a quick intervention to a whole other level. Similar to a family intervention with a substance abuser, the intervention center may choose to include those concerned but use this intervention to build support, encourage love and promote a positive view of life they want to continue to share with this person.