Therapy for Troubled and Struggling Teens

Sunrise Residential Treatment Center provides a safe and structured program for troubled teenage girls. Your troubled teen will build trusting relationships that facilitate lasting change. Girls who are struggling with personal and social issues have a unique set of needs that are best addressed by using specific therapeutic strategies that are designed specifically for girls.

Sunrise offers a range of therapeutic services, with each student receiving the following therapeutic interventions:

• Weekly Individual Therapy Sessions
• Weekly Family Therapy Sessions
• Weekly Equine Assisted Therapy
• Daily Group Therapy
• Targeted Psycho-Therapy Groups focusing on specific issues such as adoption, trauma, and abuse

Students with substance abuse issues attend Alcohol and Narcotics Anonymous meetings as needed. Students are thoroughly assessed upon admission in order to create and implement an effective treatment plan that will best support her path to success.

A Thriving Therapeutic Community

At Sunrise, we utilize a Family Systems model, driven by an Authoritative Guidance philosophy. Authoritative Guidance is one of the most noted and empirically validated parenting models; using research proven philosophies and guided by proven methods. We hold high standards in a nurturing, supportive and encouraging environment. Students learn that trust, respect, responsibility, and communication are essential to building and maintaining healthy relationships.

DBT Group

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT) helps with the problematic actions sometimes used to deal with extreme emotional intensity. DBT emphasizes taking responsibility for one's problems and helps the person examine how they deal with conflict and negative feelings. The goals of the DBT group include identifying maladaptive coping patterns and providing students with adaptive coping strategies to promote healthier lifestyles and psychological well-being. Dr. Jack Hinman is foundationally trained in DBT and leads our DBT program.

DBT combines the basic strategies of cognitive-behavioral therapy with eastern mindfulness practices. DBT is based on the idea that opposites can coexist and be synthesized. Using this strategy in thought is found to be very useful with adolescents experiencing mood disregulation and impulsivity. DBT calls on the student to accept reality while maintaining a strong and conscious commitment to change. DBT has also been modified so that it can be used with other difficulties such as eating disorders, substance use, self-harm and anger management. DBT targets the issues that cause distress and teaches skills to deal with them without having to resort to self-defeating behaviors. It does so in a framework that helps us understand that we are doing the best we can even though we need to learn ways that work better.

Dialectical Behavior group focuses on the following skills modules and associated problems:

• Mindfulness: focusing the mind, directing attention, understanding how you feel
• Emotional Regulation: reducing emotional intensity
• Distress Tolerance: reducing impulsivity, crisis management
• Interpersonal Effectiveness: keeping relationships steady, getting what is needed, and maintaining your self-respect

SMART Recovery

Sunrise's recovery philosophy entails viewing and addressing the struggles of chemical abuse and dependency from multiple perspectives and approaches. We believe each student is an individual in her treatment and SMART recovery encourages individualization of substance abuse treatment. We have found that teenagers respond well to the cognitive-behavioral approaches associated in SMART recovery intervention. We utilize the SMART recovery approach in empowering young women to make healthy life choices associated with abstinence. As part of Sunrise's recovery program we also provide students opportunities to participate in community based AA and NA meetings. Students are assessed for substance abuse or dependency and are prescribed the frequency of groups per week.

The SMART Recovery approach is based on helping individuals gain independence from addictive behavior. SMART is the acronym for Self Management And Recovery Training and is abstinence based. The program teaches participants how to:

• Enhance and maintain motivation for abstinence
• Successfully resist urges to use substances and avoid relapse
• Develop problem solving and coping skills by learning to think rationally, maintain emotional equilibrium, and practice behavioral self-control
• Develop a balanced and satisfying substance free-lifestyle

SMART Recovery is humanistic and affirms that human beings have the inherent ability to recognize their problems, learn from their mistakes and change self defeating beliefs. SMART Recovery emphasizes self-responsibility, self motivation, and self discipline as the primary means of stopping troublesome substance use. From the SMART Recovery perspective recovery is a matter of learning to recognize and change the bio-psycho-social conditions that maintain a persons addictive behavior. Recovery is a process of remaining abstinent from substances while retraining and reconditioning one's self to cope with problems and enjoying life without substances. Brad Simpson, CSW, leads our Recovery Group and is a certified SMART Recovery therapist.

Relationship Building Group

The relationship building group at Sunrise is geared toward meeting the relationship needs specific to adolescent females. In this group, relationship skills are addressed in an experiential manner through in-the-moment work on relationships with each other. Problem solving skills and cognitive processing are used in the group to better understand relationship dynamics and to learn to navigate through peer and family relationships in a successful manner. This group helps girls at all levels of care address interpersonal issues and provides a healthy environment of emotional support. Group members are given responsibility in this group to bring issues they would like to address and are challenged to get out of their comfort zones in meaningful, growth promoting ways. Dave Prior, LMFT, leads our Relationship Building Group.

Equine Therapy

Students at Sunrise are offered an opportunity to experience Equine Assisted Psychotherapy (EAP). Equine Assisted Therapy at Sunrise is facilitated by a master's level therapist and a highly experienced equine specialist. The therapist has been trained in the facilitation of equine therapy by EAGALA, who provides education, standards, and support to professionals providing these services. Equine Therapy is centered on metaphors. These metaphors mirror real life on many different levels and are used to raise young women’s awareness of issues they carry. As individual issues arise within the equine setting the girls have en-vivo opportunities to work through such issues. Equine therapy is an effective modality to learn skills such as teamwork, communication, and problem solving. It provides a natural setting in which to face fears and increase confidence and self-esteem. Michele Peterson, LCSW, received her certification through EAGALA and runs our equine program.

Recreational Therapy

Our Recreational Therapy consists of experiential groups and recreational activities. Experiential groups employ tasks that are designed so that the group must use cooperation and some physical effort to gain a solution. Through planning, trial, experiencing, and finally achieving, the group learns by "doing" rather than by talking. Participating in and processing these experiences allow the students to learn about the necessity of trust, responsibility, teamwork, and improved self-concept.

In addition to recreational group tasks the girls frequently engage in recreational and leisure activities. Some of activities include hiking and canyoneering through Zion, Grand Canyon, and Bryce Canyon National Parks. Our students participate in a variety of local outdoor activities, which include 5K events, biking, swimming, dance and visiting local state parks. They also have the opportunity to participate in typical teenage leisure activates such as bowling, movies, laser tag, horseback riding, and shopping. These activities are done strategically to help the girls make healthy life choices and be engaged in activities they will be able to continue at home. Furthermore, Sunrise is very committed to service. Service provides an atmosphere in which our girls learn to enrich the lives of others by getting outside of themselves. Through these various forms of recreational and leisure activities we help our students learn and experience appropriate leisure options that replace the previously negative activities they engaged in prior to treatment. Corey Hickman, CTRS, is our Recreational Therapist and provides a balanced program of recreational and leisure activities as well as experiential learning for our students.

Therapy at Sunrise is a collaborative approach

Sunrise involves our therapists, program directors, necessary staff members, and family members in the treatment and progress of our students.

Parent involvement is key to the success of our students. We encourage our parents to be involved in every step of the program. Visits can begin after the initial 21 days, or as the student completes the Safety Phase. Many programs tend to limit parent contact, we encourage it. Our parents participate in quarterly Parent Weekends, and are encouraged to visit at other times as well.

Therapy is provided by Master's or Doctorate level therapists.

The treatment of each student is individualized to each of her needs.

Both students and their families complete therapy assignments that are necessary to achieve their next therapy level. Therapy is used as a tool to create a nurturing environment in which student and families can re-establish a meaningul future together.

Therapy focuses on making internal changes:

We strive to help each of our students understand that she has an internal locus of control and that she has the power to make the positive changes that are needed in her life. We encourage and support our students and families to help facilitate those changes.

At Sunrise, therapy is used as a tool to create a nurturing environment in which struggling teens and their families can re-establish a meaningful future together. We strive to use life experiences and mistakes of the past as therapeutic learning experiences.

The truth is that our finest moments are most likely to occur when we are feeling deeply uncomfortable, unhappy, or unfulfilled. For it is only in such moments, propelled by our discomfort, that we are likely to step out of our ruts and start searching for different ways or truer answers.
-M. Scott Peck