our philosophy
The bedrock of our work is adventure therapy, and it is integrated into everything we do. All Journey Bound staff are considered adventure practitioners. This comes with a responsibility to bring more play, creativity, and personal expression into our respective roles. Without the surefootedness of "treatment as usual," practitioner and client alike are challenged to take an active approach in the client's healing journey.
When it comes to therapy, the nature of adventure subverts many operating assumptions inherent in talk therapy traditions. In considering mental health models that match the rebellious nature of adventure, we landed on a couple to guide our adventurous work. Like adventure therapy, these models tackle the world's wicked problems with collaboration, curiosity, and open inquiry.
Most importantly, these models were designed to be inclusive, making them digestible to lay people and therapists alike.
By removing therapists as the sole gate keeper to a person's healing, these models create common ground and shared power for a collective of people ready to change the world, starting with their own.
ACCEPTANCE & COMMITMENT THERAPY
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) is an action-oriented approach to engaging life on its terms rather than ours.
ACT sprouts from relational frame theory (RFT), which examines the complex and at times entangling relationship between language and beliefs. ACT couples mindfulness and acceptance processes with commitment and behavioral activation interventions to help us remain open, centered and engaged with our life.
What we learn from ACT applies to all humans, not just the "sick" ones. This makes ACT a natural anchor for the continuum of work we do.
COLLABORATIVE & PROACTIVE SOLUTIONS
Collaborative & Proactive Solutions (CPS) is a family-based skills framework for behaviors that are getting in the way of children developing healthy life skills.
Originally intended for parents who have a struggling child, CPS uses interpersonal interventions to improve skill development. It includes a step-by-step guide involving collaboration, modeling and coaching.
We like it because it's not only helpful for parents, it works for all adults who play a role in a kid's life! In fact, it's the framework we use when facing treatment-interfering behaviors alongside our teens.
THE GATE BREAKERS
the "why" behind our service model
At Journey Bound we see therapy as a part of the healing process, not the whole. In addition to individual, group and family psychotherapy, our licensed clinicians and student-practitioners provide services well beyond billable hours. We are more concerned about getting our teens back on track than we are with making quotas, which means doing what we know works. Guided by outcome data, here's the truth:
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For decades, the needle of treatment effectiveness hasn't changed (it's about 70%), despite the millions of dollars being pumped into developing specialized modalities and determining which ones work for what disorders
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With the exception of phobias and OCD, there is little if any clinical significance setting one gold standard protocol above the rest when treating specific disorders
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There is even research that suggests basic talk therapy skills that can be learned by lay people, such as active listening, empathic statements, and solution focused conversation, is as effective as formal therapy for many issues
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Putting this together, it's unsurprising that research shows that the quality of the therapist is the best predictor to desirable treatment outcomes. It's not about which modality is employed, it's about who is employing it!
With this in mind, here's what we know about the magic that all these "super shrinks" share. These key ingredients dramatically improve treatment potential. You ready?
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They develop strong, authentic bonds with their clients
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They hold genuine belief in their clients and their work, and this hope actively inspires the client to try new things
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They provide fresh insight respective to their client's unique worldview by remaining curious and humble
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They truly join with their clients in a corrective experience marked by personally meaningful rituals
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They co-create shared expectations that are returned to and relied upon throughout the treatment experience
In the youth sector, therapizing systemic problems is becoming commonplace. Yes, our youth are suffering but therapy is not an adequate answer. We have to stop viewing mental health as an internal problem that can be fixed within a therapy room - the world is so much wider than that! The most successful youth development programs are the ones where community, service, personal mastery and creative freedom are integral parts of care.
When expanding Journey Bound, we knew we needed a program that stretches beyond therapy and that our staff needed to be a crew - therapists and non-therapists learning, training, and growing together. This plays out in day-to-day operations, with our therapists working alongside our non-therapists to deliver all sorts of services beyond psychotherapy, including taking group bike rides, brushing up on high school algebra, and cooking hotdogs by the fire. In fact, you're just as likely to see the head honcho balancing a coffee order, tripping over climbing rope wrapped around her shoulders, and sloshing water left and right from the overflowing watering can in her arm as you are the first week intern. Being one crew means you get more trauma-informed, intentionally delivered services, across the board. When you get here, you know you're walking into a space that is specially designed to help you learn and grow.
In the way of therapy, student practitioners integrate their coursework to individual counseling and group therapy that complement the advanced training that our licensed practitioners engage in. In addition, advanced practicum students have the opportunity to provide family therapy alongside our licensed clinicians.
When a teen and their family could benefit from a manualized approach, our licensed clinicians are trained in EMDR and ABFT. We believe these models break the mold and build with the work we're doing, not separate from it. Check out why!
EXCEPTIONAL THERAPY
EMDR
ABFT
Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) is an evidence-based treatment model intended to reduce the emotional intensity of painful memories and ensuing beliefs. Through this structured, multi-phased process, clients re-process experiences that have gotten "stuck" through a gentle yet powerful somatic approach.
EMDR is grounded in the Adaptive Information Processing (AIP) model and posits that our brain is hardwired to process adversity adaptively, similar to the ways our body naturally works to heal wounds. Extreme stress disrupts this process, causing associated memories to be stored in isolated networks, disconnected from our resilient neural network and remaining "active" in our nervous system.
EMDR works hand-in-hand with adventure therapy, which also approaches adversity through intuitive channels within the body. We often integrate the two for a more expansive client experience.
Attachment-based family therapy (ABFT) is an empirically supported family therapy model specifically designed to restore the foundation of trust within the family. It targets family and individual processes through a series of relational tasks, resulting in a secure, emotionally protective parent–child relationship.
ABFT is rooted in attachment theory and espouses that the quality of a child's relationship with their caregiver significantly influences the child's mental health. A strong, safe relationship with a caregiver is demonstrated to be one of the determining factors of a child's resilience in the face of adversity. In fact, it's this relationship that often buffers a child from the painful side effects of trauma.
Equipped with this knowledge,
Journey Bound therapists offer this 12-16 week family treatment in conjunction with individual therapy for any client enrolled in the Base Camp youth program. We often encourage families to start this process early on in the program. Doing so lays the groundwork for constructive conversations as clients become better equipped to tackle harder tasks throughout their work.
Because we see it as an inalienable part of the Base Camp process, we ask the investment for families be paid in their time, not their pockets. ABFT is available for any active clients enrolled in the Base Camp program.
Specialized family therapy offered to 100% of clients. That's right. every. single. one.