What we treat
Bipolar Disorder Treatment for Adults in Sorrento Valley
For adults 18 and older who can take part safely in a scheduled outpatient setting. Call (858) 567-4246.
Clinically reviewed by Amy Evans, MA, LPC, LPCC & Dr. Vahig Manugian, DO — October 2026
Two kinds of care that have to work together
Managing bipolar disorder usually means medication and therapy at the same time — and the common experience of it is two clinicians who have never spoken, a prescriber with fifteen minutes, and a patient left to carry information between them.
That gap is where things go wrong. A change in sleep that a therapist hears about in week one reaches the prescriber in week six, if at all. Side effects get lived with because mentioning them means waiting for another appointment.
Here, both sit in the same practice, on the same record.
How we work with it
One team, one record
What is worth having is not another referral. It is the two halves of the treatment talking to each other.
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Prescriber and therapist are colleagues
Medication management runs inside the practice with a psychiatrist or psychiatric nurse practitioner, and your therapist works down the hall. Neither is reconstructing your history from a summary.
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Follow-up as part of the care
Regular appointments to review how a plan is actually working — what it is doing to your sleep and your days, and what to change — rather than something you have to chase between crises.
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Skills for the swings
Our Growth Group curriculum uses dialectical behavior therapy for emotion regulation and distress, cognitive behavioral therapy for the thinking, and behavioral activation for the flat stretches.
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Sleep, taken seriously
A sleep health group led by a nurse practitioner, as part of the program week rather than as advice at the end of an appointment. Alongside yoga and somatics, mindfulness and sound bath and music therapy.
All of it is available through the Intensive Outpatient Program, three mornings a week with a weekly individual session included — or separately, as medication management and individual therapy, if that is the level of care that fits.
Is this the right level of care?
Worth being direct about, because getting it wrong costs more here than almost anywhere.
A scheduled outpatient program cannot manage an acute manic episode. Someone in one needs a level of care that can supervise around the clock, and that is not us. The same goes for anyone who needs medical detoxification or inpatient treatment. If that is where things are right now, the numbers below are staffed and an emergency room is the right destination.
What we are built for is adults 18 and older who are stable enough to take part safely in a scheduled setting and need more than a fifteen-minute med check and an appointment every three months. The initial assessment establishes which of those is true before anything is scheduled. We set out the signals in both directions in whether an intensive outpatient program is right for bipolar disorder.
We do not provide substance use or eating disorder treatment. Where that is needed, we will provide appropriate referrals. See how admissions works.
If you are in crisis, do not wait for an appointment.
Call or text 988 for the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, available 24 hours a day. In San Diego County the Access & Crisis Line on (888) 724-7240 is also staffed around the clock. If there is immediate danger to life, call 911. Strata Outpatient is a scheduled outpatient clinic — not an emergency service, a crisis line, or a 24/7 provider.
Questions
Frequently asked questions
If what you want to know is not here, call (858) 567-4246 and ask.
I already have a psychiatrist. Can I come for the therapy only?
Yes. If you have a prescriber you want to stay with, say so at the consultation — with your written authorization we can coordinate with them, in the way our Notice of Privacy Practices describes.
Will you change my medication?
Not without talking it through with you. Our prescribers review what you are taking as part of the evaluation, explain what they are thinking and why, and make the decision with you. What is right for any individual is a conversation with a prescriber who has met you — which is why there is nothing specific about medication on this page.
What if I become unwell while I am in the program?
Your clinician and your prescriber are in the same building and will say plainly if the level of care needs to change — including if it needs to be more than we provide, in which case we will provide appropriate referrals. Outside our hours we are not a crisis service; the numbers above are.
Does insurance cover the therapy and the psychiatric side?
They are separate services and your plan may treat them differently, so we check both during admissions rather than one and then the other.
We verify your benefits during admissions, before your start date is set, and then walk you through what your plan covers, what it does not, and what your out-of-pocket costs look like. Start with our insurance verification form, or call us.
See everything we work with on what we treat, or the full range of programs and therapies.