Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale:
Detox and Subacute Residential

Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale: Detox and Subacute Residential

Our mental health treatment center in South Florida is dually licensed to treat primary mental health and substance use disorders.

Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale Program Overview

Meeting the ever-expanding need for acute stabilization and detoxification services, the Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale campus provides a higher level of care for those with acute mental health and/or substance use disorders including stabilization, evaluation, detoxification, and level 1 residential treatment. 

Centrally located in Fort Lauderdale to increase nationwide access, the campus is only thirty minutes from our Deerfield Beach campus and only twenty minutes from the Fort Lauderdale International Airport.

Non-Traditional Level 1 Residential Program

At Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale, we offer an intensive, level 1 residential program for individuals with higher acuity symptoms including those with complex co-occurring challenges who present with certain health-related medical complications, psychotropic medication resistance/non-compliance, overall history of treatment resistance, and escalated risk-taking behavior/impulsivity, and specifically for those who have had multiple treatment episodes.

In our closely supervised, structured, and supportive therapeutic environment with 24/7 nursing support, we offer state-of-the art detox and residential services. At our new location, we aim to prevent in-patient hospitalization stays by providing a program focused on stabilization for acute complex mental health and/or substance use disorders.
“As a premier dually licensed provider of treatment for complex psychiatric and substance use disorders, we recognized the increasing need in South Florida for detox and level 1 residential treatment services. We’re proud to meet the acute needs of those we serve by expanding our continuum of care. We look forward to opening the new campus to provide clinically excellent mental health services.”
Klay Weaver, CEO
Lifeskills South Florida

What and How We Treat

What We Treat

The psychiatric and substance use conditions treated at Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale include but aren’t limited to:
  • Content Thought Disorders including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Delusional Disorders, and Bipolar Disorder
  • Formal Thought Disorders including Schizophrenia, Schizoaffective Disorder, and Substance-Induced Psychotic Disorder
  • Personality Disorders including Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) with Extreme/Chronic Distress
  • Mood Disorders including Major Depressive Disorder and Generalized Anxiety
  • Various Substance Use Disorders

How We Treat

In a safe, tranquil, private environment that includes a pool and outdoor spaces for walking, meditation, and reflection, our new campus has a chef on site to create menus based on our clients’ nutritional needs. At Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale, we offer Six Clinical Pathways based on each client’s needs, including:
  • Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Pathway
  • Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Pathway
  • Substance Use Disorder Pathway
  • Cognitive Remediation Therapy (CRT) Pathway
  • Trauma Treatment Pathway
  • Metabolic Fitness Pathway

Clinical Groups at Lifeskills Fort Lauderdale

As a part of our clinical pathways, we offer several evidence-based groups, including but not limited to:
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) Group is an empirically supported psychotherapy group that rests on the fundamental premise that pain, grief, disappointment, illness, and anxiety are inevitable features of human life. This group helps clients productively adapt to these challenges by teaching them to develop a greater psychological flexibility rather than engaging in counterproductive attempts to eliminate or suppress undesirable experiences.
Chemical Dependency DBT Group is a psychoeducational and curriculum-based group teaching the four modules of DBT along with the 12-step principles. This group utilizes specific sobriety principles to frame the skills of DBT. Since the challenges faced in sobriety can be unique, this group translates DBT practices into the world of sobriety.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) Skills Group is a clinical and psychoeducational group that addresses short-term behavioral changes by helping clients challenge their cognitive distortions, increase their problem-solving skills, and reveal the relationships between their beliefs, thoughts, feelings, and the behaviors that follow.
Cognitive Remediation Group is an experiential and psychoeducational group utilizing cognitive remediation programming for increasing neuro-flexibility. Cognitive remediation helps clients improve their neurocognitive abilities like attention, working memory, cognitive flexibility, planning, and executive center functioning which leads to improved psychosocial functioning.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) Skills Group is a psychoeducational and curriculum-based group teaching the four modules of DBT: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Emotion Regulation, and Interpersonal Effectiveness. This evidence-based practice is the hallmark intervention for treating personality disorders, suicidal ideation and self-harm, and interpersonal conflicts. More recent evidence supports that DBT can also treat mood disorders and substance use. DBT philosophy is rooted in the acceptance-change principles and balancing/synthesizing those dialectics.
Exposure and Response Prevention (ExRP) Skills Group is a clinical and psychoeducational group that takes the form of CBT to treat OCD symptoms. ExRP exposes clients to thoughts, images, objects, and situations that trigger obsessive thoughts and guides them through the event, helping them to avoid their usual compulsions and make different choices.
Meditation Skills Group is an experiential and clinical group specifically for teaching evidence-based skills for decreasing anxiety and maladaptive anxious patterns of behavior. This group focuses on teaching various stress reduction techniques and process thoughts and behaviors related to being “present” in their day-to-day functioning. These skills help clients gain self-awareness and insight regarding their disposition, challenges, and strengths.
Radically Open Dialectical Behavior Therapy (RO-DBT) Skills Group is a psychoeducational and curriculum-based group teaching principles of RO-DBT for coping strategies while addressing severe affect issues. RO-DBT is most known for linking the communicative functions of emotional expression to the formation of close social bonds via skills targeting social-signaling, openness, and flexible responding. RO-BT is supported by 30+ years of clinical research to treat chronic depression, OCD, treatment-resistant anxiety, and autism spectrum disorder.
Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT) Skills Group is a clinical and psychoeducational group that teaches clients the skills to decrease faulty thinking that leads to maladaptive and self-defeating behavior and emotional disturbances.
We also offer a robust Family Program that includes family therapy sessions, a virtual weekly family support/psycho-educational group, and a regular scheduled intensive Family Weekend Program. Post-treatment, family members can join a virtual Alumni Family Support Group for ongoing support.

360 Virtual Tour of the Campus

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Admissions

We have an integrated and experienced admissions team available to assess and guide people to clinically and financially aligned services. Our team connects callers to our diversified services at Lifeskills or to our external, trusted clinical provider network.

1.

To begin the admissions process, the client, their family member, or an engaged clinical provider calls Lifeskills to provide clinical and financial information to determine eligibility. At this time, medical records will be requested.

2.

Based on appropriateness, a phone assessment with the client, or designee, is scheduled.

3.

If it’s determined that Lifeskills is the right clinical and financial fit, an admissions date is scheduled.

4.

If Lifeskills is not found to be the appropriate placement, we will provide referrals to high-quality, trusted providers aligned with the clinical and financial requirements needed.
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