
What Treatment Settings Are Available? (Addiction Treatment Course, Lesson 3.4)
This lesson comes from Yale's Addiction Treatment: Clinical Skills for Healthcare Providers course, taught by a team of Yale instructors using a recurring model case performed by actors. It surveys the spectrum of settings available for treating substance use disorder, from peer support groups and outpatient visits through intensive outpatient programs to residential and inpatient care. The instructors explain how clinicians match a patient to a setting based on severity of illness, available social supports, and recovery goals, and describe the multidisciplinary teams that staff each level of care. The lesson is aimed at healthcare providers who need a working framework for referring patients as their clinical needs change over time, treating addiction as a chronic but manageable condition rather than a single crisis to be resolved in one setting.