More than 52 million people in the United States alone suffer from a mental health disorder. Often, mental health issues can spur a person to abuse drugs and alcohol. This is often done in an attempt for the person to make themselves feel better, but it often ends up making things worse.

In some cases, addiction may even occur, making the situation even more complicated. This is why a mental health intervention is important to consider. An intervention of this kind can help a struggling person get back on their feet. However, there are a few things to consider if you plan on staging such an intervention.

But where should you start? Keep reading and learn more about what to consider when staging a successful mental health intervention.

What You Need to Know About a Mental Health Intervention

You might be wondering what a mental health intervention is and what it aims to accomplish. Such an intervention can be quite beneficial in a variety of ways, but only if it is pulled off successfully. The main goal of an intervention like this is to confront the affected person about their substance abuse and how their mental health disorder (or disorders) may be contributing to it.

In some cases, the concerned person may not even know how serious their substance abuse problems are. An intervention can help bring the issue to light so that the person can be more aware of it and its serious nature. Besides that, an intervention can give you the chance to communicate with the concerned person in a more serious light.

In particular, it is important to emphasize how substance abuse can negatively affect the concerned person’s health. It is essential that a mental health intervention be done in a collected manner. That way, it will be easier to get through to the concerned person.

The Details

A successful mental health intervention will, ideally, help the concerned person get the professional help they need to overcome their addiction. The person should also get plenty of support for their mental health condition so that the person will not relapse in the future. Mental health interventions come in a variety of forms and types, but they all more or less have the same goal.

A mental health intervention can be difficult to do, especially if you’ve never done one before and don’t know what to do. If you are unsure where to start, you shouldn’t plan an intervention right away. Instead, you should research more about what one involves.

That way, when it is finally time to stage the intervention, it will be as effective as possible. Remember that the goal is to get through to the concerned person so that they may seek out professional treatment for their drug problem as well as their mental health problems. There is also the risk that the intervention will fail.

However, you can minimize the chances of this by doing all the right things. One of the most important things you can do is hire a mental health intervention professional.

Hire an Intervention Professional

Many people don’t even consider hiring an intervention professional, but hiring one may be one of the most important things you can do. But what is an intervention professional exactly? As the name suggests, an intervention professional is a person who is specially trained in staging and conducting interventions.

You might be wondering why you should bother hiring such a professional when you can do the intervention yourself. This is a mistake that many people often make. After enough research, they may think that they are skilled enough to pull off a professional intervention, but this is often not the case.

Without a professional involved in the intervention, things could easily go wrong. For example, suppose you stage an intervention for your friend and you bring friends and family members along to the intervention to act as support. The intervention may start off fine, but there’s no telling whether or not people will start arguing or becoming emotional.

If that starts to happen, the entire intervention can start to break down and become completely ineffective. Again, the point of an intervention is to get through to the affected person rather than yell at them or drive them away even further. There is also the scenario in which the concerned person reacts in a violent or otherwise unexpected way upon realizing that they have been caught in an intervention.

What You Need to Know

Most untrained people would not know how to properly react to this kind of behavior. Again, this is why it is important to bring a professional into the mix. An intervention professional should have plenty of experience with all sorts of interventions.

So, it is only natural that the professional should know how to react to a variety of different intervention scenarios. More than that, a professional will be able to help you stage the perfect intervention. The better the intervention is, the more likely the concerned person will be persuaded to get help.

An intervention professional can help with a variety of other matters too. For example, the professional can give you advice on how to behave during the intervention. The last thing that anyone should do is start yelling or verbally attacking the affected person. This will only drive the person farther away.

The professional may also know certain ways to get through to the concerned person. The professional may be able to convince the person to get help more easily than an untrained person. More than anything, the professional will be a very strong pillar of support during the intervention.

Such a professional can make sure that the intervention stays on track as well. If not, the intervention could easily spiral into an argument and become very ineffective. Even if this does happen, the professional should be able to turn this negative interaction into a positive one.

So, when in doubt, consider hiring an intervention professional to help you.

Consider the People Who Will Be Involved

In some cases, an intervention may only consist of the concerned person and the person who is trying to help. In other cases, however, there may be several people involved. For example, some interventions may involve the concerned person’s close friends and family members.

Is involving several people in an intervention a good idea? It depends. Choosing the people who will be involved in the intervention is a difficult task.

The last thing you want to do is choose people that may irritate or provoke the concerned person. This will only drive the affected person away and may even cause that person to lash out. In some cases, choosing the wrong people can make the situation much worse than ever before.

But how can you make sure you choose the right people for the intervention? First, you will want to think of those who are closest to the affected person. For example, the concerned person’s parents, siblings, and close friends may be good options.

However, this is not always the case. For example, if the affected person has a very strained relationship with their parents, involving the parents may not be a good idea at all. In fact, doing so may make the situation even worse.

For that reason, it is important to consider the relationships the affected person has with other people. It is best to only choose people who are known to be supportive and caring regarding the concerned person. That way, there will be a better chance that the intervention will be a success.

Involving the Right People

Involving those that don’t have a very close relationship with the affected person usually isn’t a good idea as those people wouldn’t act as very strong sources of support. You will also want to think about the exact number of people you want to involve in the intervention. You certainly shouldn’t have an entire crowd of people involved.

Doing this could make the concerned person feel especially nervous or put on the spot. This could make it harder to get through to the person and talk to them one-on-one. Instead, you should only have a small group of people present at the max.

You could also try to intervene on your own or with the help of a professional. However, it is generally more effective to have a least a few key people present for the intervention. That way, the affected person will see how many people are concerned about them and their wellbeing.

Be wary of including children or elderly people in an intervention. It may not be wise to include very young children as they may start to cause a fuss due to the fact that they don’t understand the gravity of the situation. As for elderly people, you should advise them that the intervention could become very intense.

That way, they can prepare themselves ahead of time.

Prepare for Unexpected Scenarios

Even if you stage everything perfectly, there is still a chance that things could go wrong. However, even if things start to take a turn for the worse, there is still a chance that you could bring things back on track. This is especially true if you have a professional at your side.

There is never any way of telling how an affected person will react to an intervention. Some people may become angry or even violent. Others may become very emotional or may be surprised.

It is important to prepare yourself for a variety of different scenarios. That way, whatever happens, you will be prepared to take the next step. If you are worried about how the affected person will react, you should consider rehearsing your reaction to a few different scenarios.

For example, if you expect the affected person to react violently, you should think about what you will do next to make sure that the environment remains safe. Again, an intervention professional can help you with all of this since they have seen it all before.

Rehearse and Prepare

In particular, a professional can help keep the affected person calm so that the intervention can get back on track. However, there are some cases in which the affected person gets so upset that it may be impossible to calm them down. If you think that the affected person may become particularly violent or dangerous, you should consider calling 911 at a certain point.

Fortunately, this is not necessary in most cases as long as the intervention is carefully staged properly. If the intervention happens to be successful, then you can move on to the next step. Usually, the next step has to do with finding the right kind of treatment for the concerned person.

For example, a drug detox center or an alcohol rehab center may be the best choice. Therapy is also very important. Therapy not only can help the person overcome their drug or alcohol addiction, but it can also help the person better control their mental health problems.

Therapy can also give the affected person some much-needed support so that they will be less likely to relapse.

All About Staging a Mental Health Intervention

Staging a mental health intervention doesn’t have to be difficult, but there are some things you should consider. For example, you should think about what kind of people should be involved in the intervention and how many people. You should also consider how the concerned person might react to the intervention.

Above all, you should seek out professional help to make the process easier. Contact us here to learn more about how it works.