Don Rosenberg
The Power of Earlier Intervention
Don Rosenberg
2025-9-23
The sooner you come for therapy after symptoms develop, generally the more rapid the recovery and the briefer the treatment. Let’s review the principles behind this idea.
Coming for therapy as soon as symptoms appear has numerous benefits and virtually no downside. Examples of symptoms, to name a few, are
• recent onset of depressed mood
• persistent grief
• panic attacks or other high anxiety
• avoidance of situations due to anxiety or an unpleasant event
• persistent and vivid thoughts about a painful of traumatic event
• odd or strange thoughts that persist
• new appearance of obsessions or compulsions
• sudden period of insomnia or frequent nightmares
• new phobia, such as avoidance of the highway or a neighborhood after a collision there
• distressing traumatic event that you keep re-experiencing
If the symptoms are limiting, distressing, or persistent for a couple of weeks, they may worsen.
Advantages of Earlier Intervention
Clarity of Causes - Therapists can unravel the cause of the symptoms more easily when clients can remember the sequence of events that may have produced them and the causal event, reactions, or thoughts. To put it another way, the causal factors behind symptoms are remembered more easily when you come earlier.
Diagnosis - A single condition or syndrome is easier to determine and treat. Persistent mental health problems can lead to additional complications or syndromes.
Prognosis - Recovery from most conditions is more likely when you start earlier. Even recent first-episode schizophrenia in adolescents has a better prognosis when treatment starts rapidly. We can usually prevent disorders from becoming worse or progressing towards more complicated problems. Examples of such complications include adding a substance abuse problem on top of an anxiety problem or a depression on top of OCD.
Early care can reduce the chances of a future relapse or a chronic course. Also, think about trauma in childhood that, without treatment, could be a long-term condition, namely PTSD, affecting most domains of future adjustment.
Less Complex Symptoms - Over time, many conditions cause additional complications that could be avoided by rapid care. E.g., eating disorders can cause medical problems; depression can undermine diabetes care or ability maintain work; panic can make a person homebound; and gambling or Bipolar I problems can lead to debts and damage to relationships. Early care may mitigate those harms.
Fewer Secondary Impacts - Among the many problems that can develop over time are school or job performance problems, relationship problems, medical problems, loss of jobs, isolation, and substance misuse. Rapid access can often prevent much of that. For instance, a short term leave of absence for intensive treatment of a trauma or social anxiety can preserve one’s job as well as provide relief. Also, rapid care can save a student from withdrawing from a semester or prevent the loss of half year of school.
Fewer Developmental Impacts in Youth - The more a young person is emotionally or behaviorally out-of-sync with peers, the more he or she falls behind academically and socially. For example, in children with behavioral problems, we see developmental deficits in internal coping skills and relationship skills. Early therapy can keep a child on track with peers. This is crucial with ADHD and many other child problems.
Briefer, Less Complex Treatment - Many therapies are designed for a range of 6-20 sessions and they are designed for people with one condition, such as recent onset depression or recent school avoidance or recent insomnia, to site a few. When the symptom picture becomes more complicated, therapists need to apply more therapeutic approaches to make a difference and it may take 6 to 12 months or much more in order to produce relief.
Crisis Psychotherapy - We have specific methods to help people with recent onset of problems. We can usually avoid hospitalization. The cost of care is less. Coping with changes can be better. Clients can learn useful skills, such as mindfulness, problem-solving, and a more mature coping style.
Follow Through - Clients tend to follow through when they receive clarity on the causes of their symptoms and a clear, hopeful plan for making it better.
Outcome - Results tend to be better with an early start. And quicker.
Avoiding Chronicity - Over time, anxiety “spreads” so that more stimuli cue anxiety and more avoidance behavior develops. Depressive reactions can become major depressive disorders and can have a chronic or recurring course. Agoraphobia can lead to a very narrow lifestyle. Substance abuse can become dependence upon the chemical. These are but a few examples of how psychiatric conditions lead to more complex or chronic outcomes.
Importance of Accessible Practice - Therapists can often fit a brief treatment case into their schedules. We at Shorehaven view Waiting Lists as contributing to a risk of poorer prognosis, worsening problems, more suffering, poorer follow-through, persistence of ineffective ways of coping, and clients more likely to never start care or to prematurely stop care.
So, overcome the barriers to getting rapid help, especially, stigma that therapy means something is wrong with a person, concerns about cost as the cost is usually much less with early treatment, or access to therapy. For example, rapid access is a hallmark of our approach at Shorehaven and most therapists can make a spot for a client in crisis. The general principle is the sooner you come for therapy after symptoms develop, the more rapid the recovery and the briefer the treatment.
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Shorehaven Behavioral Health is a major mental health clinic and training center with therapy offices in Brown Deer, Greenfield, and Mt. Pleasant, and also offering telehealth throughout Wisconsin. We specialize in challenging cases and rapid access to services. In addition to depression, anxiety, behavioral problems, and most other psychological problems, we work extensively with children & families and with substance use problems. Our DBT program has three groups – for younger adolescents, older adolescents, and adults – and has openings. We also accept referrals for substance abuse care from clinicians who are not comfortable with that population. Call 414-540-2170.
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3900 W. Brown Deer Rd, Ste 200
Brown Deer WI 53209
414-540-2170
4370 S. 76th St.
Greenfield, WI 53228
6233 Durand Avenue, Ste F
Racine, WI 53406
262-554-8165