Our Clinical Programs

Individual Therapy

The therapist assigned to each student has an individual therapy session a minimum of one time weekly. Common types of therapies that are used are cognitive behavioral, solution focused, dialectical behavioral, and insight-orientated. The therapists are actively involved in the day to day activities of the girls’ lives, so it is common place for girls to be “checking in” with their therapist throughout the week outside of their formal therapy session. Most girls come to Auldern acting out in unproductive, unhealthy, and detrimental ways yet presenting to everyone around them as being in complete control. This acting out behavior is an expression of what is going on inside them emotionally and mentally. In general, the focus of therapy is to help the girls move from an external locus of control to an internal locus of control where they begin to take personal accountability for their past, present, and future behaviors.

Group Therapy

We offer a variety of group therapy sessions throughout the week and months. Most girls attend a variety of therapy groups (three to five is customary) throughout the week.

Groups offered at Auldern include:
Therapy Process Groups — designed to provide a safe, non-judgmental trusting environment for the girls to share thoughts, feelings, and beliefs with each other while being guided by the therapist.

Family Caseload Process Groups — Each therapist’s caseload combined with representatives from all other Auldern department comprise an “Auldern Family Group”. The goal of these groups is to cultivate a positive and supportive student and campus community. These groups focus on appropriate conflict resolution, peer to peer accountability, and provide students with the opportunity to offer one another support and encouragement.

Topic Specific Groups – are offered on specific topics that are relevant to smaller subgroups of the students. These groups give the girls the opportunity to discuss specific issues that they have with peers who have similar struggles. Common topical groups that are offered throughout the course of the year include adoption, healthy relationships and boundaries, healthy ways to deal with self- harm, developing healthy self-worth, body dysmorphia, obsessive-compulsive and anxiety issues, grief and loss, emotional survival skills, and recovery groups.

Experiential and Expressive Groups — Many girls benefit from therapeutic groups that engage their minds and bodies in more creative and active ways. We offer experiential and expressive groups that allow the girls to find healing, express feelings, and grow in their recovery. Common groups offered throughout the course of the year are expressive movement and dance, art, photography, bibliotherapy, adventure based, and poetry.

Sobriety and Self Help Groups — Many times adolescents use unhealthy coping skills to manage their uncomfortable emotions like depression or anxiety, distressing thoughts or memories, and/or out of control behaviors. Often those unhealthy coping skills turn into obsessive or compulsive patterns that only make things worse. These patterns often take on a life of their own, leading to drug usage and addiction. Common addictive behaviors for girls are using drugs or alcohol, over eating or restricting food, sexual acting out, self-harm, and technology addiction. Auldern offers sobriety, support, and recovery groups throughout the week to address these issues and offer insight and healthy coping skills and strategies.