WTRP Curriculum

Affect Management

This group assists the development of emotional regulation and improved coping skills via increased ability to identify and effectively work with cognitive distortions.

Acceptance & Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Participants learn to make meaningful behavioral changes in accordance with their values, despite the presence of problematic thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations. The therapy aims to decrease the experiential avoidance that contributes to the destructive secondary effects of PTSD.

Conflict Resolution

This group addresses issues related to anger awareness and management. Participants are provided with tools to help them better communicate and address conflict more effectively.

Panic & Anxiety

This group focuses on the panic and anxiety symptoms often seen in those suffering from PTSD. This group teaches cognitive behavioral techniques to better manage and tolerate anxiety symptoms.

Process

The main focus of this group is to provide an arena where interpersonal skills can be developed, such as establishing (and tolerating) emotional intimacy, increasing one’s ability to both receive and provide authentic interpersonal feedback, and to learn to receive and provide interpersonal support. This group also provides the opportunity for women to discuss concerns or issues that impact their ability to fully participate in the program or any other concerns they have regarding their interactions with others.

Family Issues

Group members explore their roles as members of a family, the impact of personal functioning on relationships, and the challenge of change within the family. This is an excellent group in which to address communication issues. (Gender-specific issues include the fact that women are often the custodial parents of children, when the generational impact of PTSD very acute.)

Seeking Safety

This group seeks to establish a foundation for all therapeutic work by helping patients set goals for achieving abstinence from substances, eliminating self-harm behaviors, acquiring trustworthy relationships, and gaining control over overwhelming symptoms. (The Seeking Safety Protocol is one of the only empirically-based treatments initially designed specifically for women and is geared towards those who struggle with both PTSD and substance use issues.)

Women’s Health Issues

Class material is based on the concept of empowerment. It seeks to enhance the possibilities for patients to control their own lives and achieve a sense of competency and self worth. Such topics as “Seeking Care”, “Breast Self Exam”, and “Growing Older” are presented and discussed.

Reflective Writing

Maintaining a daily journal is useful in developing and maintaining self-awareness about one’s response to treatment. It is important to spend quiet time in self-reflection and to record thoughts, feelings, and actions while participating in the program. This process serves to highlight areas in which progress is being made, and those in need of more attention.

Trauma Work / Cognitive Processing Therapy

Known for advancing cutting-edge treatments for PTSD, our program was the first to implement Cognitive Processing Therapy (CPT) for women participating in residential treatment for PTSD. This empirically-validated therapy has been shown to reduce PTSD symptoms and help survivors recover from the painful aftermath of trauma. This therapy assists participants to (a) access memories of the event(s), (b) identify and experience painful emotions until they have been extinguished, and (c) identify and challenge problematic beliefs that impede recovery. Women who participate in our "Trauma Track" (vs. our "Skills Track" which does not include trauma work) will have the opportunity to complete the full CPT protocol during their stay.

Participants are provided with a great deal of emotional support from both peers and staff as they work through their trauma. The fact that the majority of the women we see have been alone with their pain is an issue that is targeted in the program, and participants are encouraged to seek the assistance of both staff and fellow patients. The philosophy of the program, reinforced by the various groups, is that one needs others to recover.