Comprehensive Support to Diagnose and Treat Psychological Conditions
Loyola Medicine’s highly skilled psychology team provide clinically integrated pediatric and adult psychological care with compassion and understanding. Loyola’s dedicated psychologists have experience treating a wide range of psychological conditions with outstanding results.
For each and every patient, our specialists apply their considerable experience and collaborative working style to achieve the best possible outcomes.
The Difference Between Psychologists and Pyschiatrists
Psychologists differ from psychiatrists in that they hold a doctorate (PhD or PsyD) in their field and use different types of therapies, including talk therapy, for treatment. Psychologists are not licensed medical doctors and cannot directly prescribe medications.
Why Choose Loyola for Psychology?
As part of an academic medical center, Loyola’s expert clinicians perform and teach the latest medical treatments in numerous locations across the Chicago area. In addition, our nurses have earned Magnet status, which means they have been recognized for delivering the highest level of care.
What Psychological Conditions are Treated at Loyola?
About 43.7 million adults in the United States were estimated to have a mental illness in 2012. Of those, 9.6 million were experiencing serious mental illness, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.
There is no need to feel alone in this struggle. Loyola’s skilled specialists are here to help you with every aspect of your condition. Our care team includes psychiatrists, psychiatry residents, neuropsychologists, clinical psychologists, health psychologists, psychology fellows, social workers and psychiatric nurses.
Psychiatrists and psychologists work together to care for adult patients with mental health issues, including:
- Anxiety — Patients with anxiety are often worried or anxious about a wide variety of things and cannot control their unease.
- Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) — Patients with ADHD are overactive, have trouble focusing and can’t control their behavior. They also may experience a combination of these three issues.
- Autism in kids — Pediatric patients with this condition lack adequate social and communication skills.
- Bipolar disorder — This condition causes patients to experience periods of depression and extreme happiness, as well as times of severe irritability. They also have widely fluctuating energy levels and bouts of activity.
- Bulimia nervosa — Patients with bulimia nervosa experience regular episodes of overeating (binging) followed by guilt, which leads to vomiting or the use of laxatives (purging).
- Depression — Patients with depression experience low, dark moods for an extended length of time. There are different types of depression, including general, clinical, major, postpartum and geriatric depression.
- Grief — Grief is a normal emotion, but sometimes it prevents a patient from carrying on normal activities for an extended period of time. Moving beyond this level of grief may require counseling.
- Insomnia — Patients with insomnia have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep.
- Marital problems — A wide variety of issues can interfere with a patient’s relationship with his or her spouse. Counseling may be necessary to resolve these issues.
- Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) — OCD causes patients to experience unwanted and repeated feelings, ideas, thoughts, sensations or behaviors, triggering certain set behaviors.
- Oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) — Patients with ODD exhibit a pattern of hostile, disobedient and defiant behavior toward authority figures.
- Panic disorder — Patients with this type of anxiety disorder experience repeated bouts of intense fear of events that may or may not happen.
- Personality disorders — Patients with personality disorders exhibit long-term behaviors, thoughts and emotions that vary widely from the expectations of the cultural groups to which they belong.
- Phobias — Phobias cause patients to experience unreasonable and ongoing fear of various activities, situations, animals or objects, which others consider to pose little danger.
- Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) — Patients with PTSD experience a physical response to a past trauma involving bodily harm or the threat of death.
- Postpartum depression — Women with postpartum depression experience moderate to severe depression after giving birth. The depression may start soon after delivery or even a year after giving birth.
- Sexual issues — When patients are unable to start or maintain intimate relations with a partner, they may need counseling to resolve these issues.
- Social anxiety disorder — Patients with this condition feel an irrational fear of social situations that may involve judgment or scrutiny from others.
- Stress — Stress is a normal feeling in response to physical or emotional tension. Overwhelming feelings of stress may require counseling to ease the symptoms of frustration, anger or nervousness.
- Trichotillomania — Patients with trichotillomania feel an urge to pull out or twist hair until it causes hair loss.
What Types of Treatment are Available with Psychology?
Loyola’s skilled psychologists specialize in behavioral medicine. Our emphasis is on alleviating emotional and physical symptoms and promoting wellness.
Treatment tends to be shorter than traditional therapy and primarily uses a cognitive behavioral model that focuses on the interplay between mental health, physical wellness and illness.
We offer a wide range of treatment options, including:
- Biofeedback therapy — Biofeedback therapy records physiological signals like muscle tension and heart rate and displays these signals to the patient. This treatment teaches patients how their body reacts to stress and how to control body functions to enhance their health and well-being.
- Cognitive retraining — This form of therapy is for cognitive deficits such as memory loss. It combines workaround strategies and exercises to stimulate and strengthen mental skills.
- Family therapy — Loyola offers counseling to help family members learn how to improve communication and conflict resolution skills.
- Insomnia treatments — Cognitive behavioral therapy and other approaches are used to limit or eliminate disturbing bouts of insomnia.
- Marital counseling — This type of therapy helps couples recognize and overcome difficulties in their relationship.
- Neuropsychological testing — This evaluation uses pencil and paper tests to measure psychological functions linked to particular brain structures or pathways. These tests are often used to evaluate neurodegenerative illnesses, like Alzheimer’s disease.
- Postpartum therapy — A combination of psychotherapy and medication management is often used to treat new mothers who experience postpartum depression up to one year after delivery.
- Psychotherapy — Your physician may recommend talk therapy to treat psychological disorders and mental illness. Individual psychotherapy offers a close, supportive, one-on-one relationship to help break down barriers that are creating obstacles in life
- Sexual wellness program — Our Sexual Wellness Clinic brings together experts in gynecology, urology, psychology, nutrition and other fields to help couples improve their sexual health. Our six-week holistic program helps couples improve their relationships, health, emotional well-being and life balance.
- Transcranial magnetic stimulation – Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) is a noninvasive treatment that uses magnetic pulses to stimulate the brain, causing neurons to fire and improving symptoms of moderate to severe depression.
Advanced Programs to Diagnose and Treat Psychological Disorders
Loyola’s psychology program provides care for men, women and children in outstanding, conveniently located facilities.
We have multidisciplinary facilities at the Loyola University Medical Center campus, in addition to outpatient services at other locations.
We offer the following specialized services to provide you with the most comprehensive care:
- Health psychology — This field focuses on helping patients understand how behavioral, psychological and cultural factors can affect overall physical well-being and recovery from medical conditions. Health psychologists work on promoting healthful behaviors, as well as prevention and treatment of medical issues, helping patients with stress management, coping skills for medical issues, weight management, smoking cessation and grief counseling for terminal illnesses.
- Pediatric and adolescent development and behavioral issues — Loyola provides pediatric psychiatry and psychology services for children and adolescents with emotional and behavioral problems. Our program offers integrated child- and family-centered care within a supportive environment to help children build healthier relationships with family, friends and the community.
- Psychosocial oncology program — Loyola's psychosocial oncology program, located at the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center at Loyola University Medical Center, is devoted to helping patients and families affected by cancer manage the stress of a cancer diagnosis and develop coping skills to navigate treatment.
- Center for Sleep Disorders — Our center provides a comprehensive approach to diagnosing and treating both adult and pediatric sleep disorders, including snoring, sleep apnea and narcolepsy. Our multidisciplinary team includes neurologists, pulmonologists, otolaryngologists and oral and maxillofacial surgeons.
- Women’s mental health program — The women's mental health program at Loyola Medicine assists women with pregnancy and postpartum mental health issues.
Ongoing Research and Clinical Trials to Improve Psychology Treatments
Loyola’s expert psychology program is actively pursuing new research with a focus on patient-centered outcomes. As an academic medical center, Loyola is dedicated to improving future treatments by conducting research on new diagnostics and treatments.
Loyola’s patients benefit from research discoveries made here; read about Loyola’s current clinical trials.
