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Mood & Anxiety Treatment

Life, in focus. Days, defined again.

When anxiety takes over a child’s world, when a teen can’t get back to school, when a young adult can’t keep up, when an adult is fraying beneath the surface—weekly therapy can start to feel like a single thread, trying to hold together something that needs more support.

Compass offers psychiatrist-led Partial Hospitalization (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient (IOP) programs designed to help individuals stabilize, build coping skills they can actually use, and regain confidence in their daily lives.

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About the Program

Program offerings may differ by location. Kindly call us to confirm specific program details.

Ages

  • Young Child (5-12)
  • Child (8-13)
  • Teen (13-18)
  • Young Adult (18-23)
  • Adult (23+)

Treatment Levels

  • IOP
  • PHP

In-Person

  • Chicago, IL
  • Northbrook, IL
  • Oak Brook, IL
  • Silver Spring, MD
  • Golden Valley, MN
  • Brookfield, WI

Virtual Locations

  • Washington, D.C.
  • Virginia

Program Overview

When daily life feels harder to manage

Compass Health Center’s Mood & Anxiety Partial Hospitalization (PHP) and Intensive Outpatient (IOP) programs support individuals whose symptoms have grown beyond what weekly therapy alone can address. Our psychiatrist-led, multidisciplinary care provides structured, evidence-based treatment to build practical coping skills necessary to re-engage with daily life—at school, at work, and at home. With age-specific programs, flexible scheduling, and both in-person and virtual options, we meet patients where they are emotionally, developmentally, and logistically.

What Do Mood & Anxiety Disorders Feel Like?

Anxiety and mood disorders, like depression or bipolar, often feel persistent and overwhelming. For some, symptoms build gradually. For others, they escalate after stress, loss, burnout, or significant life changes. When functioning starts to decline, more structured support can make a meaningful difference.

These disorders may look like:

  • Constant worry or panic
  • Low mood, numbness, or hopelessness
  • Trouble sleeping or concentrating
  • Avoidance of school, work, or social situations
  • A sense that daily life is getting harder to manage
  • Irritability, intense energy, trouble sleeping, racing thoughts, and risky behavior

Compass programs provide an intermediate level of care—when symptoms begin to interfere with everyday life—but a trip to the ER or inpatient hospitalization isn’t the right next step.

Not Sure If This Program Is Right for You?

You’re not alone. Many people come to us feeling uncertain, unsure if what they’re going through is “serious enough” or if they’re ready for treatment.

Here’s the truth: If you’re feeling stuck, overwhelmed, or like things are getting worse—not better— we’re here to help.

Let’s take the first step together.

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Ages

Who We Help: Specialized Care by Age Group

Our Mood & Anxiety Treatment supports children, teens, young adults, and adults through age-specific treatment tailored to their unique needs and stage of life.

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Big feelings often show up in small bodies as shutdowns, sadness, outbursts, avoidance, sleep disruption, stomachaches, school refusal, or constant reassurance-seeking. When a child struggles, the whole family feels it. This developmentally grounded, family-centered program helps children build emotional regulation skills while supporting caregivers with practical tools, shared language, and guidance that carries into daily life.

Care is structured, predictable, and relational, with a focus on strengthening family communication and supporting progress at home, at school, and in treatment.

Teens are carrying a lot: academic pressure, shifting friendships, identity development, family tension, sleep disruption, and constant comparison. When anxiety or depression begins to narrow their world, they need a treatment setting that supports healthy independence while providing the structure and skills to manage growing demands.

Young adulthood brings new expectations, academic or early career pressure, and changing relationships with family and peers. This program focuses on stabilization, executive functioning, and skill-building, while helping patients stay grounded in their values and connected to the life they are working toward.

Adults often “keep it moving” until they cannot—panic, burnout, insomnia, rumination, irritability, shutdown, withdrawal, hopelessness. This program combines structure and skill-building with space to restore capacity, clarify priorities, and create a way of functioning that can actually be maintained.

Our Specialized Approach

Why Choose Compass for Mood & Anxiety Treatment?

We bring together psychiatric care, evidence-based therapies, and everyday skill-building to help children, teens, young adults, and adults better understand what they’re experiencing, while giving individuals and families practical tools that fit real life and support steadier days over time.

Evidence-Based Therapies

Practical tools to manage anxiety, regulate emotions, and build tolerance for distress.

Multidisciplinary Team

Psychiatrists, therapists, nurses, group, individual, and family therapists, education specialists, and discharge planners who specialize in mood, anxiety, and co-occurring conditions.

Personalized Treatment Plans

Tailored care plans built around each participant’s goals for sustainable progress.

Psychiatric Evaluations

Initial evaluation within 48 hours, with ongoing medication management and regular consultation.

24/7 Psychiatric Access

On-call prescribers available around the clock for urgent needs outside program hours.

Integrated Care Model

A psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner follows each participant throughout treatment and manages medication when appropriate.

Immediate Access

Mental health assessments within 24 hours, with program entry as soon as the next day.

Take The First Step

When thoughts and feelings don’t settle, our Mood & Anxiety Treatment Programs provide structured, psychiatrist-led care for symptoms that are interfering with daily life.

Contact us today to schedule an assessment or learn more about how our specialized mood and anxiety programs can help.

Take the first step

What Your Care Plan May Include

Every care plan is built around the individual—because no two people experience symptoms in the same way. Depending on needs, treatment may include:

Individual therapy is a confidential, one-on-one session between a patient and a licensed therapist focused on supporting mental health treatment through evidence-based care. In these sessions, the therapist and patient work together to explore thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, identify unhelpful patterns, and develop personalized coping strategies and treatment goals. 

Family therapy occurs between a therapist and all or some family members. It is often focused on exploring the dynamics within a family, improving communication, resolving conflict, and helping families live more harmoniously. Supporting families in family therapy to integrate evidence-based skills as a family and as individuals can be incredibly impactful. Skills can help family members feel more connected with one another and empower them to manage stressors in the family system. At times, the therapist might want to meet with individuals alone to prepare for sessions with the whole family system; however, most of the treatment is provided with families together. At Compass, family therapy is an essential part of our treatment model. Ensuring our patients and their loved ones feel informed, supported, and engaged in the treatment process and practicing evidence-based skills is a top priority. Our dedicated family therapists work closely with patients to identify who should participate in family therapy sessions and to create a focus for those sessions to best support their goals at Compass.
Group therapy includes one or two group facilitators and a cohort of participants (typically between 4 – 16 people in the space). The number and make-up of participants in each group may depend upon program census, type/content of group, and various other factors. The group therapy space is developed to be a confidential and supportive milieu in which participants can learn and practice coping skills and discuss topics to build insight and actively move towards identified treatment goals. Group members are encouraged to validate and relate to each other and engage with therapists to discuss and process skill integration, emotions, and thought processes that influence specific behaviors and share about current struggles and successes. Group therapy at Compass Health Center focuses on building awareness around behavioral goals, learning and practicing evidenced-based skills, and using a confidential space to process relevant and relatable topics with peers. Group facilitators guide understanding related to skills and topics linked to ACT, DBT, and CBT while connecting these topics to treatment objectives and skill application and integration in the home, school, and work settings. Groups may be didactic, psychoeducational, interpersonal/process, or experiential and often employ multiple techniques to increase engagement and impact.
ERP is one of the most effective treatments for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and other complex anxiety diagnoses, including Illness Anxiety Disorder, Panic Disorder, Social Anxiety Disorder, and other anxiety disorders. Patients gradually confront their feared object or situation in a hierarchical, prolonged, and planned manner. By doing so, patients learn to gain mastery over their anxiety and fears.
DBT is an evidence-based model of treatment designed by Dr. Marsha Linehan to help patients build meaningful lives and improve their ability to regulate emotions. DBT guides patients through identifying patterns in thinking, behavior, emotions, and interpersonal interactions that contribute to problems in living. Once identified, the goal is to change these patterns using coping skills. The “D” in DBT refers to dialectics, the presence or co-occurrence of two seemingly contradictory or opposing concepts simultaneously. DBT centers on the dialectic of acceptance and change and encourages individuals to walk the middle path between the two, working to balance acceptance (“I’m doing the best I can,” “this is how things are right now”) and change (“I need to try different for things to be different”). DBT comprises four central tenets to help people accept and change: Mindfulness, Distress Tolerance, Interpersonal Effectiveness, and Emotion Regulation.
CBT is an evidence-based, present-focused, structured, and time-sensitive therapy proven effective by thousands of studies over decades for many physical and mental health concerns. CBT centers around the interconnectedness of a person’s thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and physiological responses. CBT posits that the way one perceives and reacts to a situation causes them the most distress, rather than the situation itself. CBT offers skills to reduce distress by helping individuals identify distorted thinking patterns, evaluate their effectiveness, and reframe thinking to more realistic and helpful thoughts. CBT focuses on building awareness of what an individual experiences in the here and now and then problem-solve using this insight to create change in thinking patterns and behaviors using this increased insight and specific coping skills.
ACT is an evidence-based therapeutic model that combines behavior modification interventions with specific types of acceptance and mindfulness exercises. ACT aims to change a person’s relationship with their own troubling thoughts, whether it is ruminating on past mistakes, focusing on potential threats in the future, or feeling overwhelmed by traumatic memories. In changing how a person thinks about and responds to these troubling thoughts, that person frees themselves up to live a value-based, rich, full, and meaningful life. Since there is no manualized protocol for ACT, Compass adapts tools to meet patients and groups where they are at in their treatment journey. These tools assist patients in making room for their emotional experiences and to have space to focus on identifying and doing what is most important to them.
CPT addresses “stuck points” (trauma-centered cognitive distortions) via applying cognitive-behavioral techniques, such as Socratic dialogue, challenging questions, and collaborative identification of common thinking errors. These interventions aid patients’ trauma recovery processes, allowing for more flexible thinking and the development of new, balanced beliefs.
Executive functioning skills are mental skills that allow a person to organize, plan, and follow instructions, think flexibly, and demonstrate impulse control. These skills are utilized daily as individuals prioritize tasks, achieve goals, and learn. Executive function challenges can make it hard to focus, follow directions, and regulate emotions. Executive function skills are learned; patients benefit from modeling and explicit teaching.
Interpersonal effectiveness refers to constructive communication. The phrase “Interpersonal Effectiveness” is a DBT term that denotes a set of skills designed to help individuals manage challenging situations, validate the emotions and experience of self and others, improve and maintain current connections, and create new meaningful relationships. Interpersonal Effectiveness skills offer concrete guidance and support around balancing acceptance and change within relationships, asserting wants and needs in effective ways that maintain the relationship, and navigating complex situations in values-aligned ways.
Distress tolerance refers to sitting with experiences of distress (distressing thoughts, emotions, urges, and/or physiological responses). In DBT, distress tolerance refers to specific skills designed to help individuals navigate crisis moments as effectively as possible. These skills focus on guiding individuals through radically accepting the situation as it is and, at the same time, working to change what they can. DBT Distress Tolerance skills support individuals in skillfully moving through distressing realities without increasing their suffering.
Emotion regulation refers to adjusting or modulating one’s emotions. The phrase “Emotion Regulation” is a DBT term that denotes a set of skills designed to help individuals both increase resilience to intense emotions and decrease suffering related to emotions. These skills are not designed to “eliminate” or “avoid” emotions, but rather to help individuals identify and express emotions, alter their responses to their emotions, shift the emotions they are experiencing and/or the intensity of their emotions, and navigate difficult to sit with emotions safely and effectively.
Mindfulness is a term used in various ways based on setting and context. DBT defines Mindfulness as “the act of consciously focusing the mind in the present moment without judgment and attachment to the moment.” Mindfulness is active—it is something all people can engage in, actively choose to do, and can develop into practice with repeated effort. Most Mindfulness activities and tools, including the DBT Mindfulness skills, are adapted from cultural and spiritual traditions like meditation and breathwork. DBT Mindfulness skills help individuals practice being fully present in the moment, tuning in to what is happening inside and around them, and moving forward aligned with inner wisdom.

Recreation therapy at Compass Health Center is an evidence-based treatment modality that uses structured recreational and experiential activities to support mental health recovery and skill development. Led by trained recreation therapists, these sessions focus on improving emotional regulation, social skills, stress management, and overall well-being through activities such as movement, games, creative expression, and mindfulness-based exercises. Recreational therapy availability varies by program and location.

Art therapy is a specific type of experiential therapy that engages individuals in art-making and creative expression to explore internal experiences, build insight, and learn and apply skills related to treatment goals. Art therapy is a therapeutic intervention led by professionally trained art therapists with specific educational and practical experiences. At Compass, art therapy is integrated into programming in age-specific, values-aligned, and skills-focused ways.

Art therapy is a therapeutic modality that utilizes art materials and the artistic process alongside work with an art therapist within a therapeutic setting. Art materials aid clients in communicating and processing their emotions through non-verbal means. By observing the process, form, content, interests, and comments, an art therapist comprehensively assesses a client’s needs and determines treatment plans to restore, maintain or improve an individual’s mental health.    

Motivational Interviewing is a therapeutic technique that helps individuals bridge the gap between their current behavioral choices and their identified goals. The four tenets of Motivational Interviewing (MI) are facilitating engagement, focusing on goals, evoking awareness and motivation, and planning for reasonable steps to move toward helpful goals. Open-ended questions, validation, reflective listening, and summarizing are helpful tools to guide these steps.

Animal-assisted therapy at Compass Health Center is a structured, goal-directed therapeutic intervention that incorporates interactions with trained therapy animals as part of a patient’s overall treatment plan. Guided by a licensed clinician, these sessions use animal interactions to help patients reduce anxiety, build emotional regulation skills, increase motivation, and improve social engagement. Animal therapy availability varies by program and location.  

Parents often carry a quiet weight: uncertainty, self-doubt, and the sense that they should know how to fix what is happening. Parent groups provide space to learn skills, ask questions, and hear from others navigating similar challenges. These conversations often bring relief as much as information.  

For More Information or to Schedule an Assessment, Call Us or Fill Out the Form Below.

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Frequently Asked Questions

Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and Acceptance and Commitment Therapy have been demonstrated to be the most effective treatment for anxiety. If the anxiety is severe and causing a significant amount of disruption for the person, Exposure and Response Prevention, a type of Behavioral Therapy, will be recommended.

Children experiencing anxiety may present as tearful, avoidant or irritable. They may have nightmares, refuse to go to school or develop physical symptoms such as stomach aches or headaches.

Anxiety is a normal part of the human experience. No one can live a life free of anxiety. However, for some people, anxiety is experienced more frequently and more intensely. For these individuals, treatment can assist in changing how one experiences anxiety so that it no longer controls their life.

Medication is often used in conjunction with therapy in the treatment of anxiety. Research demonstrates a combination of the two is the best course of treatment for anxiety.

Anxiety in and of itself cannot hurt us. Often, the unhelpful strategies people adopt to try to rid themselves of anxiety are what end up resulting in health concerns.

At Compass Health Center, we want to make sure that a patient can get the healthcare they need, regardless of their insurance coverage. We accept most commercial insurance plans, and we offer flexible payment plans to help make our services more affordable. Our billing team works with the patient/family to establish any plans needed.

The same type of medications used to treat depression are often most effective in treating anxiety.

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Our Impact

We understand that success can look different for everyone depending on your hopes and needs. Here are a few ways we define success:

95%
of patients step down to a lower level of care after treatment

99%
would refer a family member or friend

97%
of patients choose to start a program the same day or next day

90%
of patients maintain progress, not requiring higher care levels for 12+ months post-treatment

I know it’s a lot to handle, but throughout my time here I made friends and I’ve grown a lot as a person. The best advice I can give is to not fight the process.

Child Patient

I felt very safe and listened to in this program. I felt like I could be my authentic self and I wouldn't be judged for it.

Teen Patient

Compassion first, always.

Young Adult Patient

I feel capable again.

Adult Patient

Meet Forward, Compass Health Center’s Lookbook

Mental health care is changing—and so is the way we tell its story.

Forward is a collection of voices, insights, and design that feels less like a brochure and more like a magazine you’d actually want to flip through. We created this Lookbook to show how care can be approachable, engaging, and thoughtfully designed—just as our treatment experience is. Inside, you’ll find our philosophy, programs, and patient outcomes shaping Compass care today, and what’s next.

Get Forward, Compass Health Center's Lookbook