Clinical Programming at Highlands in Bloom: Evidence-Based Treatment for Mental Health and Autoimmune Conditions
Highlands in Bloom is a licensed residential treatment center in Agoura Hills, California providing individualized, evidence-based clinical programming for high-functioning adults navigating mental health disorders, autoimmune conditions, chronic stress, trauma, and burnout. Our clinical program is developed and overseen by Clinical Program Director Stacy McNeal, PhD, LMFT and Medical Director and Psychiatrist Dr. Todd Hill, and delivered by a multidisciplinary team of licensed therapists and clinical specialists.
We extend a warm invitation to visit our facility and undergo a complimentary, confidential in-person or virtual assessment with our team, enabling us to determine the most suitable treatment approach for your individual needs and clinical history.
Upon enrollment, our dedicated treatment team works together to craft a personalized plan that considers each client’s unique requirements, treating them comprehensively as a whole person rather than a collection of symptoms. These treatment plans are continually evaluated and refined based on each client’s progress, ensuring that evolving clinical needs are met effectively throughout the residential stay.
Our clinical programming addresses mental health disorders including anxiety, depression, PTSD, bipolar disorder, OCD, and ADHD alongside autoimmune conditions including lupus, fibromyalgia, multiple sclerosis, Hashimoto’s thyroiditis, rheumatoid arthritis, and IBD. We treat these not as separate concerns but as the interconnected physiological and psychological conditions they are.
Our Clinical Approach
Clinical programming at Highlands in Bloom is grounded in the understanding that lasting recovery requires addressing both the mind and the body. Chronic stress, unresolved trauma, and nervous system dysregulation are not only psychological phenomena they have direct, measurable effects on immune function, inflammatory activity, hormonal balance, and physical health. For many of our clients, mental health symptoms and autoimmune symptoms exist in a reinforcing cycle that neither psychiatry nor rheumatology alone has been able to break.
Our clinical program interrupts that cycle by addressing the root drivers simultaneously. Evidence-based psychotherapies work on the cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns sustaining mental health symptoms. Trauma-focused modalities work on the nervous system dysregulation stored in the body. Psychiatric oversight ensures that medication management is integrated into the broader clinical picture when clinically appropriate. And individualized treatment planning ensures that no two clients receive the same program, because no two presentations are the same.
All clinical programming is delivered within the structured, immersive residential setting that allows for the therapeutic intensity and daily consistency that weekly outpatient sessions cannot provide.
Clinical Programming
Psychiatric Care
Psychiatric care at Highlands in Bloom is provided by Medical Director and Psychiatrist Dr. Todd Hill, who conducts one-on-one sessions with residential clients on a weekly basis throughout their stay. Dr. Hill oversees medication evaluation and management, integrates psychiatric assessment into the broader individualized treatment plan, and ensures that medical and clinical care are delivered as a unified whole rather than in parallel silos.
Psychiatric care at Highlands in Bloom is not limited to medication management. Dr. Hill works collaboratively with the clinical team to ensure that each client’s psychiatric presentation is understood in the context of their trauma history, nervous system state, autoimmune profile, and overall health, a whole-person approach to psychiatric oversight that differs meaningfully from episodic outpatient psychiatry.
Psychiatric support is available to all residential clients as part of their individualized treatment plan. A full psychological evaluation is conducted at intake to establish a clinical baseline and inform the treatment planning process.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is a third-wave cognitive behavioral approach that focuses on building psychological flexibility, the capacity to remain present, accept difficult thoughts and feelings without struggle, and take committed action in alignment with personal values even in the presence of pain or distress. ACT is particularly well-suited to individuals managing chronic illness, where the goal is not to eliminate suffering but to build a meaningful life alongside it.
At Highlands in Bloom, ACT is integrated into both individual therapy and group programming. For clients managing autoimmune conditions, ACT provides a framework for relating differently to pain, fatigue, and physical limitation without the psychological struggle that amplifies suffering and sustains the stress response. For clients managing anxiety, depression, or burnout, ACT builds the value-directed behavioral foundation that sustains recovery after discharge.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy is one of the most extensively researched and clinically validated psychotherapies available, with a robust evidence base across anxiety disorders, depression, PTSD, OCD, bipolar disorder, and chronic illness management. CBT works by identifying and restructuring the maladaptive thought patterns and behavioral responses that sustain psychological distress, replacing them with more accurate, adaptive patterns over time.
At Highlands in Bloom, CBT is delivered within individual therapy sessions by licensed clinicians and reinforced through group therapy and psychoeducation programming. For clients managing autoimmune conditions, CBT addresses the anxiety, avoidance, and catastrophic thinking patterns that frequently accompany chronic illness and that are known to worsen inflammatory activity through the stress response. For clients managing mental health disorders, CBT provides the cognitive tools that form the foundation of long-term self-management beyond the residential stay.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
Dialectical Behavior Therapy is an evidence-based clinical approach originally developed for borderline personality disorder and now widely used across a broad range of mental health presentations including depression, anxiety, trauma, emotional dysregulation, self-destructive behavioral patterns, and chronic stress. DBT combines cognitive behavioral strategies with mindfulness and acceptance-based practices to build four core skill sets: distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness.
At Highlands in Bloom, DBT skills are embedded throughout both individual therapy and group programming, giving clients practical tools for managing intense emotional states, tolerating distress without resorting to maladaptive coping, and building the self-awareness necessary for sustained recovery. DBT is particularly relevant for clients whose autoimmune presentations are influenced by emotional reactivity and stress-driven flares, as the emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills directly address the physiological stress response that worsens immune dysregulation.
Family Therapy
Family therapy addresses the relational dynamics, communication patterns, and systemic factors that influence an individual’s mental health and recovery. Chronic illness and mental health disorders do not exist in isolation, they affect and are affected by the family system, and recovery is meaningfully supported or undermined by the quality of those relationships.
At Highlands in Bloom, family therapy is offered as a component of the individualized treatment plan where clinically indicated. Sessions are facilitated by licensed clinicians and focus on improving communication, rebuilding trust, establishing healthy boundaries, psychoeducating family members about the client’s conditions, and developing a shared understanding of the recovery process. Family involvement in treatment is coordinated in a way that supports the client’s clinical progress and sense of safety throughout the residential stay.
Group Therapy
Group therapy is a core daily component of residential programming at Highlands in Bloom. Groups provide a structured clinical environment for psychoeducation, skill practice, peer support, and the therapeutic processing of shared experiences under the facilitation of licensed clinicians.
Research consistently demonstrates that group therapy is clinically effective across depression, anxiety, trauma, and chronic illness populations, not as a supplement to individual therapy but as a distinct and valuable form of clinical intervention in its own right. The experience of being witnessed by peers who understand, of practicing new relational and emotional skills in a live relational context, and of contributing to others’ healing as part of one’s own is a dimension of recovery that individual therapy cannot replicate.
At Highlands in Bloom, groups are kept small given our six-client residential capacity, ensuring that each participant receives meaningful engagement rather than being lost in a large group dynamic. Group topics rotate across clinical skills, psychoeducation, processing, and thematic content relevant to the population we serve, including the mind-body connection, autoimmune health, nervous system regulation, and sustainable self-management.
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is a structured, evidence-based program that trains present-moment awareness as a clinical skill for managing stress, anxiety, chronic pain, and the psychological burden of chronic illness. MBSR has a well-established research base across anxiety disorders, depression, chronic pain, cancer-related distress, and autoimmune conditions, with documented effects on inflammatory markers, cortisol regulation, and nervous system activity.
At Highlands in Bloom, mindfulness practice is embedded throughout daily residential programming as both a standalone clinical component and an integrative element within individual therapy, group work, and somatic practices. For clients managing autoimmune conditions, MBSR directly addresses the HPA axis dysregulation and chronic stress response that drive inflammatory activity. For clients managing anxiety and depression, consistent mindfulness practice builds the attentional and emotional regulation capacity that underpins long-term psychological stability.
Psychodynamic Therapy
Psychodynamic therapy explores the unconscious emotional patterns, relational dynamics, and early life experiences that shape present-day behavior, emotional responses, and psychological symptoms. Where CBT focuses on changing current thought patterns and behaviors, psychodynamic therapy works to understand and resolve the deeper emotional and relational roots from which those patterns grew.
At Highlands in Bloom, psychodynamic approaches are integrated into individual therapy for clients whose presentations reflect longstanding relational patterns, attachment wounds, identity challenges, or unresolved grief and loss. For high-functioning professionals and executives, psychodynamic work often illuminates the internal drivers of overwork, perfectionism, emotional suppression, and burnout in ways that surface-level cognitive intervention does not reach.
Psychological Evaluation
A comprehensive psychological evaluation is conducted with every client at intake and serves as the clinical foundation upon which the individualized treatment plan is built. The evaluation assesses cognitive functioning, emotional and behavioral patterns, trauma history, psychiatric history, personality structure, and the relationship between psychological and physical symptoms including those associated with autoimmune conditions. It provides the clinical team with a complete and nuanced picture of each client’s presentation before treatment begins.
At Highlands in Bloom, psychological evaluations are conducted by licensed clinicians and reviewed collaboratively by the full multidisciplinary treatment team, including Clinical Program Director Stacy McNeal, PhD, LMFT and Medical Director and Psychiatrist Dr. Todd Hill. Findings from the evaluation directly inform which clinical modalities, therapy frequencies, group programming components, and adjunctive services are most appropriate for that individual client.
For clients who arrive with an existing psychiatric diagnosis, the evaluation confirms, refines, or contextualizes that diagnosis within the whole-person clinical picture. For clients who have never received a formal psychological assessment, the evaluation often provides the first clear clinical language for experiences they have been living with for years without adequate explanation.
Psychological evaluation is also used as an ongoing clinical tool throughout the residential stay, with reassessment conducted as clinically indicated to track progress, adjust the treatment plan, and ensure that care remains responsive to each client’s evolving needs.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
EMDR is a trauma-focused psychotherapy with a strong evidence base for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), complex trauma, anxiety disorders, and the psychological impact of chronic illness. EMDR works by facilitating the reprocessing of traumatic memories and distressing experiences that have become stuck in the nervous system, reducing their emotional charge and physiological activation so that the events can be integrated rather than repeatedly re-experienced.
At Highlands in Bloom, EMDR is delivered by trained licensed clinicians within individual therapy sessions. It is a core component of our trauma-focused treatment approach and is particularly relevant for clients whose autoimmune conditions are connected to adverse childhood experiences or chronic trauma history, a well-established association in the clinical literature. Many clients who have undergone years of talk therapy without significant relief find that EMDR addresses the dimension of their experience that verbal processing alone could not reach.
Trauma-Focused Care
Trauma-focused care is not a single modality at Highlands in Bloom, it is the clinical orientation that runs through every aspect of our program. A trauma-informed approach recognizes that many of the patterns that bring clients to residential treatment, including anxiety, emotional dysregulation, burnout, chronic pain, and autoimmune flare cycles, are rooted in nervous system responses to past overwhelming experiences that were never fully resolved.
Our trauma-focused clinical framework integrates EMDR, somatic experiencing, body-based therapies, psychodynamic exploration, and nervous system regulation work to address trauma at the cognitive, emotional, and physiological levels simultaneously. For clients with a documented trauma history including PTSD or complex PTSD, trauma-focused modalities are central to the individualized treatment plan. For clients who do not identify as trauma survivors, the trauma-informed lens still informs how we understand and address the nervous system patterns underlying their presenting symptoms.
Nervous System Regulation
Nervous system regulation is a core clinical focus at Highlands in Bloom and a thread that runs through every pillar of our program. The autonomic nervous system governs the stress response, immune function, inflammatory activity, emotional regulation, sleep, digestion, and cardiovascular function. When it is chronically dysregulated, as it is in most clients presenting with anxiety, burnout, PTSD, and autoimmune conditions, restoring its capacity to shift between activation and rest is not a wellness goal. It is a clinical imperative.
Nervous system regulation work at Highlands in Bloom is embedded throughout daily residential programming through somatic movement, breathwork, cold plunge hydrotherapy, PEMF therapy, sound healing, and mindfulness practices, alongside the clinical therapeutic work happening in individual and group sessions. Clients develop both the understanding of their own nervous system patterns and the practical daily practices necessary to sustain regulation after discharge.
FAQs
What clinical therapies are offered at Highlands in Bloom?
Our clinical program includes Psychiatric Care, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT), Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), Psychodynamic Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR), Family Therapy, Group Therapy, Psychological Evaluation, and trauma-focused and nervous system regulation approaches integrated throughout. All treatment plans are individualized based on each client’s clinical history, presenting conditions, and treatment goals.
Who oversees clinical programming at Highlands in Bloom?
Clinical programming is developed and overseen by Clinical Program Director Stacy McNeal, PhD, LMFT and Medical Director and Psychiatrist Dr. Todd Hill. All treatment plans are developed collaboratively by our multidisciplinary clinical team and reviewed regularly throughout the residential stay to reflect each client’s evolving needs.
How is clinical programming individualized for each client?
At intake, each client undergoes a comprehensive psychological evaluation and clinical assessment that informs their individualized treatment plan. The plan specifies which clinical modalities, therapy frequencies, group programming components, and adjunctive services are most appropriate for that client’s unique presentation. Treatment plans are reviewed and adjusted throughout the residential stay based on clinical progress.
Does clinical programming address autoimmune conditions?
Yes. Our clinical program directly addresses the psychological and physiological patterns that coexist with and worsen autoimmune conditions, including chronic stress, nervous system dysregulation, trauma history, emotional suppression, and burnout. Clinical therapies including CBT, EMDR, ACT, MBSR, and somatic approaches each have clinical relevance to autoimmune presentations and are incorporated into treatment plans accordingly. Learn more about how we treat autoimmune conditions.
What is the difference between individual therapy and group therapy at Highlands in Bloom?
Individual therapy involves one-on-one sessions between a client and their assigned licensed therapist, focused on the client’s specific clinical history, treatment goals, and therapeutic process. Group therapy involves facilitated clinical sessions with the residential peer group, focused on shared skill development, psychoeducation, processing, and peer support. Both are core components of residential programming and serve distinct and complementary clinical functions.
Is EMDR available at Highlands in Bloom?
Yes. EMDR is a core component of our clinical program and is delivered by trained licensed clinicians within individual therapy sessions. It is particularly relevant for clients with PTSD, complex trauma, anxiety, and autoimmune conditions connected to adverse experiences or chronic stress history. Learn more about how we treat PTSD.
How does DBT support recovery from mental health and autoimmune conditions?
DBT builds four core clinical skill sets, distress tolerance, emotion regulation, interpersonal effectiveness, and mindfulness, that are directly relevant to both mental health recovery and autoimmune condition management. The emotion regulation and distress tolerance skills in particular address the physiological stress response that drives inflammatory activity and autoimmune flares, making DBT clinically meaningful beyond its traditional psychiatric applications.
Can I receive a clinical assessment before committing to residential treatment?
Yes. Highlands in Bloom offers a complimentary, confidential in-person or virtual clinical assessment with our team to determine whether residential treatment is the appropriate level of care and to begin understanding the most suitable treatment approach for your individual needs. Contact our admissions team or call us at (805) 892-6313 to schedule.
Does Highlands in Bloom offer psychiatric medication management?
Yes. Psychiatric medication evaluation and management are provided by Medical Director and Psychiatrist Dr. Todd Hill as part of the residential treatment program. Medication management is integrated into the broader individualized treatment plan and reviewed regularly throughout the residential stay in coordination with the clinical team.
How long does clinical programming last?
Clinical programming runs throughout the full duration of a client’s residential stay, which typically ranges from 30 to 90 days depending on individual clinical need and progress. The residential setting allows for daily therapeutic engagement at a depth and consistency that weekly outpatient care cannot replicate.
Take the First Step
Highlands in Bloom accepts clients from across California and the United States. If you are ready to understand whether our residential clinical program is the right fit for your mental health, autoimmune, or stress-related needs, our admissions team is available daily for a complimentary, confidential clinical consultation.
Request a Consultation or call us directly at (805) 892-6313.
We are in-network with Blue Shield of California and Aetna and accept most major PPO plans. Verify your insurance here.