Methods - Modalities - Holistic Approaches - Experiential Exercises - Mindfulness

Drawing from its traditional roots and appealing to a trauma sensitive style, yoga is a powerful mode of self-healing for our clients during their stay at The Refuge. This self-healing practice allows our clients to experience three different awarenesses; that their body is a safe place to live, that they have a choice on every level in how you handle life experience from day to day, and rediscovering that responses to these day to day events (past, present, and future) have a beginning, middle, and end. On many various levels all of our clients struggle with these basic awarenesses as a result of trauma, addiction, and life experience. Rooted in this intention of healing, the yoga practice can be used as a platform for re-establishing a healthy relationship with self by creating a safe place to observe these basic awarenesses.

At The Refuge our clients are required to attend group meditation at least five times per week. This allows the community as a whole to become centered and aware of their body and surroundings. Many of our therapists agree that meditation is a key component when working around trauma/PTSD and other underlying issues.

An experiential and body-focused technique that allows participants to experience spiritual, emotional, and somatic body experiences surrounding trauma/PTSD, in a safe and supportive environment. Breathwork is a powerful personal development tool that uses conscious connected breathing techniques to bring to the surface of our awareness the physical, mental, and emotional blocks that keep us in our unhealthy patterns. At The Refuge we offer breathwork two times per week and it is open to the entire Refuge community. Many of the clients find that this holistic practice allows them to explore emotions and traumas that are extremely deep in the core and have been suppressed for many years. When performed by one of our specially trained breathwork practitioners, breathwork can be a very powerful therapeutic experience.

Hypnotherapy is a well-practiced experiential trauma/PTSD treatment technique that allows us to safely and willingly bypass a lot of our old defenses and provide freedom to think, feel, and act differently. The first stage of Hypnotherapy that The Refuge uses makes sure the person has solid resources. Once the therapist feels comfortable that the client can move forward, the therapeutic process can begin. Exploring previous traumas and make bolder connections to past feelings, behaviors, and memories.

The goal of Hypnotherapy is to allow the person to rethink and reframe past negative patterns of feeling and thinking so they can make new, healthier decisions with more confidence. The process of hypnotherapy is really an effort between the therapist and the subject to set a stable foundation, then begin to process and explore deeper core issues. Hypnotherapy has been very effective in helping addicts and trauma/PTSD survivors succeed in their recovery and resolve their trauma.

The Refuge uses Psychodrama to explore the problems, issues, concerns, dreams, and highest aspirations of our rehab clients through dramatic action. The core function of Psychodrama is to create spontaneity in a group setting that allows us to address trauma, PTSD and/or addiction. Sociometry (measurements of relationships), role theory, and sociodrama (group issues) are utilized as part of the process to enhance the experience. Psychodrama facilitates insight, personal growth, and the integration of the cognitive and affective parts of the brain that have often been disconnected as a result of trauma in our lives. When we create this spontaneous experience in a therapeutic setting, the participants and observers can see new and dramatic ways to re-stage, or re-create, patterned responses. Only trained clinical rehab staff conducts and facilitates our psychodrama sessions.

Psychodrama is a powerful treatment modality that often brings deeper insight and allows clients to re-stage an emotionally difficult issue from their lives and emerge with a healthier - and more confident - commitment to face that problem. Much more than simply role playing, psychodrama utilizes the intimacy of group and peer-to-peer processes under the direction of a skilled and trained clinician. The Refuge has included psychodrama in our multi-faceted treatment approach, as it is a superb method to work on trauma resolution and addiction recovery.

The Equine staff at The Refuge is trained in Eagala techniques. Accordingly, we use our horses to provide our clients with vast opportunities for metaphorical learning. This rehab program is very much a part of our experiential modality. The Refuge use horses because they have the ability to mirror exactly what human body language is telling them. The Refuge horses provide an effective technique when working with clients who are imprisoned by secrets, trauma, or failed attempts at recovery.

One of the most significant lessons that occur for rehab clients in Equine-Assisted Psychotherapy is if they change themselves, the horses respond differently. Horses are honest, which makes them especially powerful messengers. Typically, clients will have several opportunities to work with our horses and seeing the change in a horse's response can be more powerful than positive verbal feedback.

Currently, the equine program is led by the therapist whose group is participating with the horses. The therapist works closely with the equine professionals to create a safe and therapeutic environment for the clients. Our equine professionals have extensive experience with horses and are excellent at ensuring the safety of the riders. The professionals are skilled at assisting the therapist as needed to create the very productive equine therapy groups.

S.E. encourages and utilizes awareness of sensations in the body to help people "renegotiate" and heal their trauma/PTSD. Through this perspective, Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) may be seen as unhealed trauma, locked in the body, over time. Rather than catharsis or reenactment, which in some instances may cause re-traumatization and re-arousal of intense emotional states, S.E. works to integrate powerful energies at the speed and level that each individual can safely assimilate within his/her own nervous system.

At one time, S.E. helps the rehab client identify traumatic response and, in a more significant way, S.E. awakens resilience and enhances personal awareness and esteem. S.E. combines with traditional therapy easily, adding another avenue to assist the client to discover their own strengths and resources.

Somatic Experiencing® (S.E.) is a short-term naturalistic approach to the resolution and healing of trauma. Dr. Levine, who is closely associated with The Meadows, developed this approach as another means to help clients achieve trauma resolution. S.E. Practitioners must undergo 3 years of practice to complete the training. We are proud to have two staff members who have completed their three-year training in 2008.

The Refuge clinicians use specialized assignments that help clients work through their trauma/PTSD and process addictions. These assignments are designed to engage clients/participants in their trauma(s) and work through them. Please click the assignments below to learn more.

Timeline

This assignment allows participant/client to present an experiential chronology of their life. The practical application of this assignment has the client detail their traumatic events in addition to noting the client's accomplishments and resiliency. This assignment is a powerful tool as the client - and the peer group - has the opportunity to clearly see positive and negative patterns; family dynamics; relationship patterns in addition to seeing how the client creates their expressive attributes. This is a longer term assignment and usually requires the participant to spend a few hours both creating and presenting the work.

This assignment can be used in many different ways: Relationships, Financial, Food, Sex, Work, or Gambling.

Body Map

This is an amazing assignment for person(s) with eating disorders, body dysmorphia, sexual abuse, or any number of body discomforts. It allows a client to show and identify where the actual pain or trauma is/occurred and where a client is comfortable or uncomfortable with their body.

Trauma Egg

The Refuge clinicians agree that this is one of the most powerful assignments given to trauma survivors. The trauma egg is designed so that the client/participant draws the first traumatic experience they can remember at the bottom of the egg, and as they move towards the top of the egg the traumas become more recent.

This assignment can be used in many different ways: Financial, Sexuality and Work

Collage

Can be done on any subject and is best left to the client to determine what subject it "should" be on. A collage may include newspaper clippings, ribbons, bits of colored or hand-made papers, portions of other artwork, photographs and other found objects, glued to a piece of paper or canvas. This assignment is a great way for a person to express themselves or their trauma without words.

Letters

Letters can be used for a variety of different reasons. The Refuge clinicians ask clients to write letters to a significant other, child, higher power, self, family and friends. Writing a letter enables a person to say what cannot be said.