Our Treatment Approach
The foundation of Laurel Hill Inn’s therapeutic approach is based on Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). Cognitive Behavioral Therapy techniques teach ways to alter unhealthy and often, inaccurate thinking patterns about one’s self, body, food and relationships. CBT is evidence-based, which means that it is supported by an abundance of research over the past several decades that prove that it is effective in treating people with a variety of emotional and behavioral problems.
To enhance our treatment at Laurel Hill Inn, we also use a therapeutic approach known as Dialectical Behavioral Therapy. DBT is a newer behavioral therapy that was adapted from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. DBT is comprised of four educational modules or skill sets - Core Mindfulness, Interpersonal Effectiveness, Emotion Regulation, and Distress Tolerance. DBT skills help our clients understand how and why problem behaviors occur and identify alternative, more healthy ways of coping. The overall approach to therapy is called "dialectical" because it seeks balance between opposites -- such as acceptance and change, validation and challenge, rigidity and flexibility. Research suggests that DBT is effective in helping clients decrease eating disorder symptoms and anxious thoughts and feelings.
Group Therapy
Group Therapy is an important part of the treatment program at Laurel Hill Inn. Each day is composed of numerous treatment groups that provide psychological education, skill training, and practice to help residents develop skills necessary to deal with the challenges of their eating disorder.
CBT Group
This group helps our clients understand the connections between thoughts, feelings and behaviors. The group utilizes various exercises in order to indentify and modify unhealthy patterns. Clients learn new skills to manage their anxiety and restructure their thinking in a more effective manner. Clients receive homework assignments to help them practice.
DBT Skill Groups
These groups are designed to help individuals learn how to regulate emotions and become able to manage distress in a more effective manner without using their eating disorder. Our clients learn concrete coping skills through group lectures and discussion. These skills are practiced during group and outside of group through homework assignments. There are weekly DBT groups including the four educational modules outlined above.
Nutrition Group/Meal Planning Group
Nutrition and meal planning group focuses on helping patients learn new ways to nourish their bodies through meal planning, adding various new foods into their current diet, confronting fear foods, and learning to have a more positive attitude about food. Nutrition group integrates concrete suggestions for improving eating patterns with counseling around emotional barriers to change.
Body Image Group
This group focuses on the connection between individuals and their bodies. A variety of cognitive, behavioral, and experiential techniques are utilized to foster acceptance of the body in all its wholeness. This group enables clients to address and challenge distortions and low self-esteem issues related to their bodies.
Self-Esteem Group
Self-esteem is closely tied with body image. Low self-esteem contributes to a distorted body image, and the distorted body image cannot change until self-esteem issues are reconciled. This group encourages clients to learn new ways to foster self-esteem through self-nurturing and exercises that develop self-worth and self-care.
Art Therapy
For some individuals, it can be difficult to share personal feelings in a group setting. Under the guidance of a trained expressive therapist, art therapy provides another modality to help clients identify and express their feelings using drawing in a supportive environment.
Family Relationships
Having a family member suffering from an eating disorder affects the way that all family members interact with each other. Because of this, it is important to address how family dynamics may contribute to eating disorder development, maintenance, and recovery. Group members are encouraged to process both historical and current family dynamics in order to gain a better understanding of their own unique experience of sickness and recovery.
Process Group/Weekend Review
This group is less didactic than the other groups in order to provide a time for clients to bring up topics and issues of their choice. Group leaders provide a safe environment for clients to discuss personal issues that relate to their eating disorders. All group members are encouraged to identify problem behaviors and problem-solve and provide support.
Motivation and Commitment Group
The goal of this group is to help clients clarify and resolve ambivalence about behavior change and stay committed toward changing their eating disordered behavior. By using techniques from motivational interviewing to help clients understand the process of healing, clients acquire the skills to stay motivated toward recovery.
Yoga
The goal of this group is to use gentle yoga to help patients reconnect to their bodies in a non-threatening manner. Patients also learn how to decrease their body anxiety without using their eating disorder. Gentle yoga and meditations allow patients time to relax and let go of some of the tension they may hold in their bodies.
Relapse Prevention and Next Steps
The focus of this group is to prepare clients to sustain the gains made in treatment. Clients learn how to make effective use of treatment gains in ongoing preparation for discharge. This group helps clients cope adaptively and constructively with sources of stress that are potential triggers for relapse.
Recreational Therapy
This group provides clients with the opportunity to develop constructive means of expressing themselves, as well as an opportunity to explore the possible relationships between their eating disorder symptoms and their emotions. clients engage in various forms of expression including art, music, poetry, writing, movement, psychodrama and collage.
Understanding Addictions
This group focuses on the connections between eating disorders and other addictive behaviors. Clients learn recovery models for other addictions and apply them to their own experiences. The focus of this group is to help clients understand their own addictive behaviors and learn to utilize skills to manage these behaviors.
Here and Now
This group gives clients an opportunity to talk about any feelings or recovery issues they may be currently experiencing. Group members give and receive support from each other, to enhance the recovery process.
