Treatment Modalities
Effective teen treatment requires innovative integration of multiple treatment modalities to fit the individual needs of clients. These differing perspectives, in the context of a unifying philosophical orientation, provides an approach towards healing that honors both individuality and best-practices.
Below is a list of treatment modalities that we have specifically researched, tailored, and integrated into our teen-specific, trauma-informed care model.
NeuroAffective Relational Model® (NARM)
NARM is a developmentally-oriented, neuroscientifically-informed model for addressing attachment, relational, and developmental trauma. Integrating both top-down (cognitive & emotional) processes with bottom-up (sensory & instinctual) processes within a relational context supports greater capacity for self-regulation, self-compassion, and social engagement.
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT)
DBT is a mindfulness-based cognitive behavioral therapeutic approach to supporting increased mindfulness skills, distress tolerance, emotional regulation, and interpersonal effectiveness. Through DBT skills building and practice, teens can learn how to approach life with greater capacity for self-acceptance and personal transformation.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT is a type of psychotherapeutic treatment that helps adolescents learn how to identify and change destructive or negative thought patterns that influence their behavior and emotions. The focus of this approach is to identify core beliefs that drive distortions in the way that we think, reacting to life through learned behaviors that can be shifted through intentional focus and practice of new skills and techniques.
Expressive Arts Therapy
Expressive Arts Therapy utilizes writing, drama, movement, painting, and/or music to explore their responses, reactions, and insights. A teenager is not required to have artistic ability to use or benefit from expressive arts therapy, merely a willingness to participate in a process that may unlock certain subconscious beliefs, processes and patterns that would be challenging to reach through traditional therapeutic approaches.
Somatic Therapy
A modality grounded in the body-mind connection, somatic therapy is based on the premise that healing will occur organically once a person is given the proper environmental conditions and interpersonal support. Utilizing body-oriented techniques such as somatic mindfulness, grounding, visualization and physical exercises, somatic therapy is an effective approach to achieving increased regulation in the autonomic nervous system (ANS) and resolving deeply rooted emotional difficulties.
Mindfulness in Motion
The focus in Mindfulness Therapy is on increasing our awareness of our thoughts, feelings, and impulses in the present moment. As a teen gains greater self-awareness, capacity for presence, and ability to remain non-judgmental, they can utilize critical thinking skills, regulate their emotions and respond to life rather than feel stuck in reactivity.
Interpersonal Neurobiology
Foundationally, interpersonal neurobiology is a multidisciplinary model for understanding how our relationships shape our identity. Outlined by Dr. Dan Siegel and Dr. Allan Schore, founders of IPNB, the mind is defined as a relational process that regulates information and energy flow, which means that our brains are constantly rewiring themselves. All relationships change the brain, particularly the most intimate ones, like the ones with our primary caregivers or romantic partners. It was once believed in psychology that our brains were definitively shaped by our early life experience, interpersonal neurobiology holds that our brains are constantly being reshaped by new relationships.
Equine Therapy
Equine-assisted psychotherapy incorporates horses into the therapeutic process. People engage in activities such as grooming, feeding, and leading a horse while being supervised by a mental health professional. Goals of this form of therapy including helping people develop skills such as emotional regulation, self-confidence, and responsibility.
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR)
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy treatment that was originally designed to alleviate the distress associated with traumatic memories (Shapiro, 1989a, 1989b). Shapiro’s (2001) Adaptive Information Processing model posits that EMDR therapy facilitates the accessing and processing of traumatic memories and other adverse life experience to bring these to an adaptive resolution.
Still have questions?
If you are an individual or a family member seeking more information about our programs, we encourage you to contact us directly to speak with a trained, caring, professional who is ready to offer you support.
