Healer heal thyself, getting a taste of your own medicine, practicing what you preach: these are all phrases that urge us to walk a mile in our clients’ shoes.
Sometimes even a team as great as the folks at Trauma Treatment Center gets stuck in old patterns of thinking. If we want our clients to grow and change some of their behavior or thought patterns, we need to do the same.
So with transformative thinking in mind, the TTC crew recently went on a brief retreat.
We had fun with face painting, a scavenger hunt and, most importantly, we connected and did some discovery work, regarding ourselves and our practice.
We even did some dancing. While we are serious clinical treatment professionals, creative thinking and problem solving requires getting outside your comfort zone, and as Martha Graham said, “Dance is the hidden language of the soul.”
To empower our clients, we continue to learn to empower our bodies and our minds. The self-defense portion (see pix below) of the retreat was hosted at the New Mexico State Police headquarters and taught by Gloria Marcott of Soul Punch Power Academy. Afterward, we gobbled down wonderful pizza from Turtle Mountain because we were famished, exhausted -- and who doesn’t love pizza?
After getting our bodies in shape, we got our minds tuned up as we discussed new ideas about increasing the scope, reach, and effectiveness of our work.
Now you can enjoy these benefits. Here are the top six things we learned during our retreat.
1 - Expanding our teen intensive outpatient program
During the retreat, we discussed the increasing demand for our IOP program.
As a result, we are expanding our very successful teen counseling program that serves Albuquerque and Rio Rancho adolescents ages 13-17 and their primary caregivers.
Our IOP is a 12-week program focusing on trauma with topics including:
Substance use/abuse
Trauma Processing
Parenting (for the caregivers)
DBT (dialectical behavior therapy) skills (mindfulness, interpersonal effectiveness, distress tolerance, and emotion regulation)
Body-based trauma processing
The course runs Mon/Wed or Tues/Thurs with a new class starting every six weeks.
Services are billable to insurance.
We’re very proud of our IOP program because it’s a great fit for adolescents who are:
In need of more than once a week therapy
Are stepping down from an inpatient program
Have been engaged with juvenile justice but are not making progress
Referred by a mental health provider
2 - NEW Massage therapy: for adults who need kneading.
Sometimes one massage therapy session can work wonders. We are so excited by our brand new massage therapy department that we’ve opened it up to any adult without a referral.
Therapeutic massage offers many benefits, both emotional and physical.
Emotional Benefits of Massage Therapy:
Enhance relaxation
Ease symptoms of depression
Reduce anxiety
Reduce stress
Physical Benefits of Massage Therapy:
Decrease migraine frequency
Decrease rheumatoid arthritis pain
Decrease symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome
Eliminate toxins by stimulating your soft tissues
Enhance exercise performance
Enhance immunity
Help chronic neck pain
Help fibromyalgia pain
Help manage subacute/chronic lower back pain
Improve balance in older adults
Improve cardiovascular health
Improve circulation
Improve joint mobility/flexibility/range of motion
Improve quality of life in hospice care
Improve sleep
Improve recovery of soft tissue injuries
Improve skin tone
Lower blood pressure
Lower joint replacement pain
Reduce chemotherapy-related nausea
Reduce fatigue
Reduce high blood pressure
Reduce muscle tension
Reduce pain of osteoarthritis
Reduce post-surgery and post-injury swelling and pain
Relieve tension headaches
Stimulate the lymphatic system
Strengthen the lower back
We’re very excited to offer therapeutic massage to adults in Albuquerque and Rio Rancho. Click here to sign up today.
3. - Help people overcome their fears, starting with ourselves
During our retreat, we felt silly wearing face paint and light-up tutus. Feeling silly was the point. By embracing our fear, we were able to transcend it.
Our old selves were perhaps afraid to question how we did things at TTC. These goofy but courageous staff members were able to create a new way of doing things.
4. - Working toward a shared goal
Team-building exercises create cohesion.
Some individuals in therapy may feel like they are in a battle with themselves, their caregivers, their school, etc.
After exercises like the scavenger hunt, we have a new appreciation for how to work as a team and how to communicate our needs and goals to each other.
TTC adds members to your personal growth team who share your goal for a happier life.
5. - Finding surprising ways people can help you
Just as we learned new things about ourselves and each other, there are people in your sphere already who can help you in surprising ways.
If you’ve ever been in an escape room game, teams win when they are composed of different people with varied skills. The same is true of therapy.
Think about all the people you regularly encounter during a week. Any person may have hidden talents that can help you solve the mysteries of the escape room, or help you with the problems in your life.
It pays to ask. People will often pleasantly surprise you.
6. - Reduce stress by conquering your challenges
Just the knowledge that you’re addressing the big issues reduces stress.
Ideally, you leave both therapy and a retreat with a sense of empowerment because you’ve formulated a way to conquer your challenges and move forward.
Both therapy and retreats offer more benefits than we can list here. They help boost confidence and morale, spark creativity, enhance your communications skills, discard unhelpful systems, create new action plans, and develop leadership qualities.
If you want to achieve these goals for yourself or someone in your care, please contact us here.