Treatment planning is an essential part of the therapeutic process. Thorough treatment planning provides a clear, achievable direction for your work with clients. Both counselors and clients alike benefit from the assessment process and formulation of a treatment plan catered to the client's individual needs. Writing a treatment plan for depression that reflects your client's specific needs begins with a complete biopsychosocial assessment. In the treatment world, we also know this as an "intake."

During the intake process, counselors can build rapport while gathering pertinent information related to the depression, including personal and family history of medical and mood disorders, ongoing stressors, previous services and medications, and the current presentation of their depression symptoms. Throughout the intake process, clinicians conceptualize the client's everyday functioning to diagnose depression accurately. A diagnosis of depression will reflect an understanding of the client's challenges based on duration, frequency or persistence of episodes, and severity of symptoms.

Once the intake and diagnosis are complete, make sure to take advantage of the Wiley Treatment Planner tool integrated directly into our EMR platform to help you formulate your client's treatment plan for depression. 

Wiley Treatment Planners outline plans for treatment using the following criteria:

Behavioral Definitions

Behavioral Definitions are specific to your client's presenting problems. Some call this an operational definition. Behavioral definitions are succinct and detailed. For treatment planning for depressive symptoms, consider how their depression affects their functioning. Ask, what has changed in this client's life from a bio-psycho-social perspective? For example, your client may have trouble sleeping. A behavioral definition states the specific effect or operation of sleep on your client.

• Difficulty falling asleep
• Restless sleep
• Difficulty staying asleep

Other areas to consider when developing behavioral definitions for depression include mood, social activity, motivation/energy, grief, interest in activities, and suicide ideation/attempts.

Treatment Goals

Wiley Treatment Planners acknowledge goals for treatment as long-term. When forming a depression treatment plan, consider what your client wants to see differently in the treatment time frame. That time frame may change, but it is essential to have specific goals for your client to work towards in treatment. Goals are overarching and include how the client would like their presenting problems to change. 

An important consideration for any treatment plan goal is to state the purpose from an action-oriented, positive perspective. If the client says they would like to feel less sad overall, encourage them to restate the goal in a positive manner. Rather than focus on what you want less of, focus on what you need more of. For example, less sadness means more happiness or joy or enjoyment in activities. A long-term treatment goal may be:

• Experience a noticeably uplifted mood as demonstrated by enjoyment in self, daily functioning, social relationships, and preferred activities.

Treatment Objectives

Treatment objectives are more short-term. They are specific, measurable ways that the client will display progress towards their treatment goals. Treatment objectives state how your client and yourself will measure that difference over a length of time. To estimate an overall change in mood, you might ask the client to use a subjective Likert scale or use a depression assessment taken periodically. 

The critical areas of focus for writing treatment objectives are specificity, measurability, and duration. An example objective for the treatment goal above would be:

• Client will rate depressed mood as _ on a scale of 1-10 for depressed mood three times per week for three weeks.

Another important consideration for treatment objectives is noting the baseline levels for measuring your client's target outcome. Having this data makes it possible for yourself and the client to track progress over time.

Interventions

Lastly, your treatment plan for depression will include interventions you will implement in treatment. Wiley treatment planners provide a wide range of relevant, valid interventions to address several depression-related treatment plan objectives.

Essential considerations for depression interventions listed on a treatment plan for depression include validity, relevance to the objective, and thorough definition. 

• Validity - the intervention is evidence-based and matches the treatment problem
• Relevance - the intervention fits the needs of your client 
• Thorough definition - the intervention is clearly defined

For instance, if your intervention is to "teach coping skills for depressed mood", clearly state what the coping skills will be. Including this level of detail ensures you have accurate interventions documented on behalf of your client.  

Treatment planning is a comprehensive process. Take the burden off by using a tool like the Wiley Treatment Planner, already integrated into Alleva's EMR platform. After all, you do not have to reinvent the wheel to provide effective, well-researched treatment for your client's depression. Once your behavioral definitions, treatment goals and objectives, and interventions are clearly documented, you will have a comprehensive treatment plan for depression to review and implement with your client. A treatment plan goes beyond documentation. When aided by the friendliest EMR around, your treatment plan can provide hope for a future your client may not have thought possible.