A DBT-Centered Approach to Healing, Growth, and Connection
At Orama Residential Treatment Center, our program is designed to give adolescent girls more than a safe place to stay. It provides a structured, supportive environment where they can better understand themselves, develop practical coping skills, strengthen relationships, and begin building a healthier path forward.
Our clinical program is centered around Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) and supported by additional evidence-based and person-centered approaches. Rather than applying the same treatment plan to every resident, our team considers each girl’s experiences, challenges, strengths, relationships, and goals when developing her care.
DBT-Centered Residential Treatment for Adolescent Girls
Dialectical Behavior Therapy, or DBT, serves as a central foundation of our clinical programming. DBT helps adolescents develop practical skills they can use when emotions feel overwhelming, relationships become difficult, or old coping patterns no longer serve them.
Residents have opportunities to build skills related to:
- Emotional regulation
- Distress tolerance
- Mindfulness
- Healthy communication
- Interpersonal effectiveness
- Problem-solving
- Self-awareness
- Coping with difficult thoughts and emotions
DBT is not the only approach we use. Our clinicians thoughtfully integrate other therapeutic modalities based on each resident’s individual needs.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT)
CBT helps residents recognize connections between their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors. By identifying unhelpful thought patterns and learning healthier ways to respond, girls can begin developing new perspectives and more effective coping strategies.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
ACT encourages residents to develop greater psychological flexibility by learning how to make room for difficult thoughts and emotions without allowing them to control every decision. Residents can explore their personal values and practice making choices that move them toward the person they want to become.
Person-Centered Therapy
Every girl who comes to Orama has her own story. A person-centered approach ensures she is treated as an individual rather than a diagnosis or set of symptoms. Our clinicians work to create authentic therapeutic relationships where residents feel heard, respected, supported, and involved in their own healing.
Together, these approaches allow treatment to remain structured while still being deeply personalized.
Individual Therapy and Family Involvement
Meaningful change takes individual work, but adolescents do not exist in isolation. Family relationships, communication patterns, boundaries, and support systems can all play an important role in long-term healing.
Each resident participates in weekly individual therapy with her primary therapist. These sessions provide dedicated time to explore personal challenges, treatment goals, emotional patterns, relationships, and progress.
Family participation is intentionally woven into treatment as well. Parent coaching and family therapy sessions occur on alternating weeks, allowing caregivers to develop skills alongside their daughter while also giving families opportunities to work directly on communication and connection.
Parent Coaching
Parent coaching helps caregivers better understand what their daughter is learning and how they can support continued progress. Sessions may focus on communication, emotional regulation, boundaries, family dynamics, expectations, and preparing for the transition home.
Family Therapy
Family sessions provide a supportive environment for working through challenges together. Depending on the needs of the family, sessions may address rebuilding trust, improving communication, navigating conflict, understanding emotional triggers, and practicing healthier ways of relating to one another.
Our goal is not simply to help a teen feel better while she is at Orama. We want families to develop tools that can continue supporting connection and growth after residential treatment ends.
What to Expect at Orama
Starting residential treatment is a major transition, and uncertainty can make that transition feel even bigger. Knowing what happens before admission and what everyday life may look like can help residents and their families arrive feeling more prepared.
A Sample Day at Orama
Structure that feels safe. Experiences that support healing.
Morning
- Wake-up and morning routine
- Breakfast
- Community check-in or intention setting
- Therapy and skill-building sessions
Afternoon
- Lunch
- School
- Individual, family, or psychiatric sessions
Evening
- Dinner
- Recreation and connection
- Reflection or journaling
- Wind-down and bedtime routine
Weekends
- Creative and wellness activities
- Life skills and chores
- Recreational outings
- Family calls and optional spiritual services
Where every girl is known, supported, and cared for with intention.
At Orama, devoted care means more than supervision — it means a team who shows up wholeheartedly, every single