Colorado Recovery provides psychiatric care to adults diagnosed with schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, schizoaffective disorder, depression with or without psychotic features, dual diagnosis of mental illness with substance misuse, and other psychotic disorders.

Every new client gets an immediate and thorough psychiatric evaluation by one of our psychiatrists and a therapist which includes gathering full details on the person’s life, their experience of illness, prior treatment efforts including medications, assessment of physical health and substance abuse, and social and vocational functioning. 

We involve close family members in the process of gathering this information. After assessing the client to get a complete clinical picture of their schizophrenia, bipolar diagnosis, or other diagnosis, the treatment team gives an initial diagnostic impression and makes recommendations about further assessment and treatment. The client’s previous diagnosis may change at this point or later, after further assessment.

A careful evaluation of the correct diagnosis and most effective treatment plan is central to the success of care at Colorado Recovery. We provide psychiatric rehabilitation services throughout the treatment process, with an emphasis on getting clients back to work or to schooling.

Psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner Lynn Bodensteiner joined the Colorado Recovery team in March. She likes the core aspects of the Warner treatment model: Comprehensive levels of care that result in a path to self-reliance and community engagement for connection and a feeling of contribution. “The focus here is on re-integration, which is great,” she says.

Bodensteiner, who has a doctorate in nursing practice, also works part-time at the Stout Street Health Center, a facility of the Colorado Coalition for the Homeless—often a more challenging environment. “It’s good to see Colorado Recovery patients taking their meds and getting better, this is often not the case with unhoused clients,” she says. “At Colorado Recovery, there is actually less emphasis on meds, and patients are encouraged to volunteer or get jobs.”

Medication adherence can be a challenge for mental health patients. “Non-adherence is highly prevalent, ranging between 63–74 percent in patients with schizophrenia and about 50 percent in patients with bipolar disorders,” wrote Loots, Goossens, et al. in a 2021 study on medication adherence. “About 25 percent of patients discontinue their medication within the first week after discharge from inpatient treatment. Non-adherence puts patients at risk for exacerbations of psychosis and relapse resulting in hospital visits and admission.”

“Adherence is important for medications to work correctly,” recommends the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI). “Not being adherent with your medications could result in a worsening of your medical condition, a decrease in your quality of life, and a need to go to the hospital or clinic more often.”

Colorado Recovery utilizes a whole range of treatment modalities, only one of which is medications when appropriate for the patient. In addition to medication management and monitoring, Colorado Recovery provides psychiatric and other services, including individual and group therapy, socialization and recreational activities, and psychosocial rehabilitation.

These specialized services cover the full spectrum of client needs from symptom control to functioning at work and in social situations. Our treatment facility provides the services needed to address schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental illnesses specific to each individual. Call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help. 

Being in nature can boost your mood and improve your mental health. Spending quality time in the great outdoors reduces stress, calms anxiety, and can lead to a lower risk of depression, according to a 2015 study by researchers at Stanford University. 

In addition to having mental health benefits, being outdoors opens up your senses to your surroundings and improves your sensory perception. Taking in the sights, smells, and feelings of nature has numerous health benefits.

The treatment team at Colorado Recovery understands these benefits well and—with a campus only a short distance away from the spectacular landscape of the Rocky Mountains—has utilized the great outdoors as part of our treatment programs for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other mental illnesses. Exposure to the healing power of nature is part of our treatment philosophy. 

In a few days, some of our clients will undertake a hike that will be both challenging and deeply rewarding. “They are going on a three-day excursion up and around the Buchanan Pass area,” says Terry Stiven, MA, LPC, outpatient and transitional living manager at Colorado Recovery. “We’re gonna hike in four miles, they’ll see beautiful fields with the mountains in the background, and we will set up our base camp there.”

“The first day is about acclimating and setting up our space with the opportunity to do an afternoon hike to get to know the area.” Day two will be a pretty rigorous hike. “We’ll hike up to a lake and hang out there.”

Participating clients have been preparing for the excursion. “A certain level of commitment was required,” explains Stiven. “We’ve been doing weekly hikes to prepare and we had meetings with them to talk about the gear.” 

Good preparation is key, as clients are expected to be able to hike four miles with a fifty-pound pack on their back. “We also talked about teamwork: who’s going to make meals? what kind of meal are they going to make? Who is responsible for clean-up? There is a nice level of working as a team.”

Meals will be basic: oatmeal and breakfast bars in the morning, sandwiches for lunch, rice and pasta dishes in the evening—nothing fancy. At the end of the experience, clients are supposed to feel good about themselves. “There may be some level of anxiety about getting out of your routine but getting out of one’s comfort zone is part of the deal,” says Stiven. “Getting back to nature also means working through that. You’re not in the comfort zone of your room.”

“Having a sense of accomplishment and being able to carry what you need for the next three days on your back and get by is huge,” explains Stiven. “This will significantly boost our clients’ self-esteem.” 

The self-esteem necessary for clients to succeed in the wider community can be strengthened on a wilderness trail. At Colorado Recovery it is our mission to help adults with serious mental health issues stabilize their illness, minimize symptoms, improve functioning, and enhance each person’s social inclusion, quality of life, and sense of meaning in life.

If you have questions about our recovery model or our services to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and similar mental illnesses, call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.

Schizophrenia is a chronic, severe, and disabling psychiatric disorder that affects approximately two million Americans in any given year. Despite extensive research, the causes of schizophrenia are still unclear. “There is no single organic defect or infectious agent which causes schizophrenia, but a variety of factors increase the illness—among them genetics and obstetric complications,” wrote the late Colorado Recovery founder Richard Warner, MD, in his influential book The Environment of Schizophrenia. “Relatives of people with schizophrenia have a greater risk of developing the illness, the risk being progressively higher among those who are more genetically similar to the person with schizophrenia.” 

Genetics is only part of the story, though. “Since the identical twin of a person with schizophrenia only has a 50 percent risk of developing the illness, we know that genetics alone do not explain why someone gets the illness,” wrote Dr. Warner. “Other powerful factors have to play a part; one of these factors is problems of pregnancy and delivery. The risk for people born with obstetric complications, such as prolonged labor, is double the risk for those born with none.” 

But which genes exactly are responsible for the increased risk? Most scientists have always assumed that genes linked to schizophrenia were primarily, if not entirely, related to the brain. 

An interesting new study conducted by the Lieber Institute for Brain Development suggests that the risk of schizophrenia is primarily due to the role of over 100 associated genes in the placenta, rather than in the developing brain. The research by Ursini, Weinberger, et al., published in Nature Communications, highlights a more substantial involvement of the placenta in the origin of the illness than previously recognized.

“The secret of the genetics of schizophrenia has been hiding in plain sight—the placenta, the critical organ in supporting prenatal development, launches the developmental trajectory of risk,” said Daniel Weinberger, MD, senior author of the paper and director and CEO of the Lieber Institute for Brain Development in Baltimore. “The commonly shared view on the causes of schizophrenia is that genetic and environmental risk factors play a role directly and only in the brain, but these latest results show that placenta health is also critical.”

The researchers found that “schizophrenia genes influence a critical function of the placenta to sense nutrients in the mother’s bloodstream, including oxygen, and exchange nutrients based on what it finds,” explains an article in SciTechDaily. “The schizophrenia risk genes are more lowly expressed in the cells of the placenta that form the core of this maternal-fetal nutrient exchange, called trophoblasts, negatively affecting the placenta’s role in nurturing the developing fetus.”

The study also identifies several genes in the placenta that are causative factors for diabetes, bipolar disorder, depression, autism, and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). However, the researchers found far more genetic associations with genes for schizophrenia than for any of these other disorders.

The researchers also discovered that the risk genes for schizophrenia found in the placenta may have a relatively greater effect on heritability, the likelihood of illness inherited from ancestors, than risk genes found in the brain.

“Targeting placenta biology is a crucial new potential approach to prevention, which is the holy grail of public health,” said lead author Gianluca Ursini. “Scientists could detect changes in placental risk genes decades before the possible onset of a disorder, possibly even in the mother’s bloodstream during pregnancy. If doctors knew which children were most at risk of developmental disorders, they could implement early interventions to keep them healthy.”

The scientists also found interesting sex-based differences in the placenta risk genes. Different genes were associated with schizophrenia risk based on whether the placenta came from a male or female child. In pregnancies with male children, inflammatory processes in the placenta seem to play a central role. Previous research has shown males are more vulnerable than females to prenatal stress. Generally speaking, developmental disorders such as schizophrenia occur more frequently in men and boys.

The Lieber Institute researchers hope their ongoing study of the genes of the placenta will one day lead to new treatment and diagnostic tools, perhaps revolutionizing the field of prenatal medicine.

Recovery from a serious mental illness such as schizophrenia requires that people experiencing the disorder retain a sense of empowerment—a belief in their ability to take charge of their lives and manage the complex demands and consequences of the illness.

Colorado Recovery has been utilizing the Warner method to empower adults with mental illness for many years now. Our program approaches mental healthcare based on a path of self-reliance through developed practiced skills. Recognizing the importance of empowerment for recovery, our non-institutionalized philosophy offers comprehensive levels of care supported by an expert medical and clinical team, engaging patients in increasing community participation. 

Our treatment facility provides the services needed to address schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and other serious mental illnesses. Call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.

“Art can harness the healing power within each of us and help bring us into community with one another,” wrote educator Jackie Armstrong in the magazine of the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. “When in front of an artwork, we are connected to the artist and to others who have experienced it. And connection, to ourselves and others, is at the core of art and healing. Healing isn’t a destination with a fixed timeline or endpoint but rather a path—or many paths. Just like each visit with a favorite work of art is a new experience with new insights, healing is a journey with possibilities stretching out in all directions.”

Art is also part of the healing process facilitated by the treatment team at Colorado Recovery. After initially working in transitional housing at Colorado Recovery, Peter Kamback, MFA, had the opportunity to lead an art group before taking on his current role as a vocational rehabilitation specialist. He feels art is too often sidelined in our society and delights in allowing mental health patients to express themselves through art. Kamback likes to incorporate his art background in his current role and build on his experience with groups.

Colorado Recovery’s approach to treatment is about nurturing an environment of inclusivity, socialization, and community building. Clients are encouraged to take part in activities out in the community and within our own community as well.

A recent trip to the Boulder Museum of Contemporary Art is a good example. “It’s a great opportunity to see clients in a more natural setting and get a better sense of them as persons rather than patients,” said Kamback. “You experience them as people in a public location and also note how they interact with each other.”

BMoCA in downtown Boulder is easily accessible for Colorado Recovery patients. “It’s a small building but they utilize the space well,” Kamback remembered. “They featured three different artists that none of us—myself included—were familiar with. It was good to come in fresh and let clients explore the space. The museum wasn’t too busy so they were really comfortable with that. On this particular excursion, I specifically encouraged them to wander around and look at all the art on display, and then choose a favorite.”

After they got back to the campus, they got together and discussed the artwork they had viewed and which one they liked the best. “We had a sort of debriefing: ‘What drew you to this particular piece?’ and then others could chime in and we talked about feelings and emotions—what it was like to be at the museum.”

Because of his art background, Kamback excels at organizing and processing this kind of outing. He knows where to draw the line and not exhaust clients too much and make them lose interest. “We had a good time on this trip. This was a great opportunity for them to be in a public space. We used public transport to get there and they had good interactions the whole way. The whole trip is the experience, not just the museum visit.”

Trips to the art museum, hikes, game and movie nights, and other socializing activities are all part of the groundbreaking approach to mental health treatment pioneered by Colorado Recovery founder Richard Warner.

Recovery from serious mental illness requires that people with such a condition retain a sense of empowerment—a belief in their ability to take charge of their lives and manage the complex challenges of their illness.

At Colorado Recovery it is our mission to help adults with serious mental health issues stabilize their illness, minimize symptoms, improve functioning, and enhance each person’s social inclusion, quality of life, and sense of meaning in life.

If you have questions about our recovery model or our services to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and similar mental illnesses, call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.

The number of Americans who believe that regular marijuana use can be harmful has been steadily decreasing in recent decades and 22 US states and the District of Columbia have now legalized the recreational use of cannabis products. Self-reported use in the US increased from 9.9 percent in 2007 to 15.3 percent in 2017 with the most increase in cannabis use among high school students although they are not legally permitted to use marijuana.

“Excessive cannabis use is known to associate with psychotic-like experiences, schizophrenia symptoms, cognitive impairment, and emotional distress,” reported Sanchari Sinha Dutta, Ph.D., in April on News Medical. “Studies have shown that the administration of psychoactive constituents of cannabis can induce acute psychotic-like experiences, including unusual thoughts, paranoia, disorganized thinking, and in some rare cases, auditory and visual hallucinations.”

A new study published in the journal Schizophrenia Bulletin shows that genetic risk factors for schizophrenia can increase the possibility of experiencing cannabis-related psychotic symptoms in regular marijuana users. “Among individuals who regularly use cannabis, genetic liability for schizophrenia—even in those without clinical features—may increase the likelihood of reporting unusual experiences related to cannabis use,” the authors wrote. “Cannabis use disorder (CUD) was prevalent in this analytic sample (70 percent), with 40 percent classified as mild, 25 percent as moderate, and 35 percent as severe. Polygenic risk for schizophrenia was positively associated with cannabis-related paranoia, feeling depressed or anhedonia, social withdrawal, and cognitive difficulties, even when controlling for duration of daily cannabis use, CUD, and age at first cannabis use.”

The average age of first-time marijuana use was sixteen years. About three-quarters of the enrolled participants reported using other illicit drugs.

“The study reveals that regular cannabis users with higher pre-existing genetic susceptibility to schizophrenia are at higher risk of experiencing cannabis-related psychotic experiences, including hallucination, paranoia, depression, cognitive difficulties, and social withdrawal,” Dr. Dutta wrote in the News Medical article. “Moreover, excessive and early-onset cannabis users are more likely to report unusual cannabis-related experiences. As mentioned by the scientists, the study involved ascertained individuals with a high prevalence of cannabis use disorder and use of other illicit drugs.”

Cannabis use and schizophrenia seem to have a close relationship, wrote Patel, Khan, et al. in their 2020 study on the association between schizophrenia and cannabis use. “Schizophrenia and psychosis walk hand in hand alongside with cannabis use,” they wrote. “When a healthy person uses cannabis, he experiences relaxation, euphoria, and a decrease in anxiety and boredom. However, they might also have some undesirable effects like paranoia, grandiosity, agitation, hallucination, cognitive impairment, disorganized thinking and behavior, and depersonalization. People predisposed to the development of psychotic illness are more vulnerable to the psychotomimetic effects of cannabis, more specifically, THC” (the primary psychoactive component of cannabis).

The research suggests that it is a bad idea to try alleviating schizophrenia symptoms with cannabis products. Patel, Khan, et al suggest that “chronic cannabis use in schizophrenic patients has a detrimental effect on brain morphology.”

Mental health conditions and substance use disorders such as CUD are frequently co-occurring because many people with addiction are primarily misusing addictive substances to self-medicate emotional pain caused by serious mental health disorders. Colorado Recovery understands the importance of coordinated and integrative treatment care and provides substance use services to all clients who require them as part of a specialized dual diagnosis track.

At Colorado Recovery, mental health treatment is focused on stabilizing illness, minimizing symptoms, improving functioning, and enhancing each patient’s social inclusion, quality of life, and sense of meaning in life.

If you have questions about our recovery model or our services to treat schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and similar mental illnesses, call us at 720-218-4068 to discuss treatment options for you or the person you would like to help.