Residential Programs for Girls

Residential Programs for Girls

The Academy at Sisters

We believe that good mental health is not the absence of problems. It’s learning to cope with problems rationally. You cannot control all that has or will happen. You can only choose how you deal with it.

Erich Fromm, the famed psychoanalyst said, “Most people who fail in the art of living, do so not because they are inherently bad, or so without will that they cannot lead a better life; they fail, because they stand at the fork in the road and have to decide.”

Self efficacy is defined as “the power to produce an effect, synonymous with ability, capacity, potency, strength.” The Academy at Sisters girls programs are geared ultimately to this goal. In the age old argument between free will and determinism we have, for the purposes of achieving our end goal of “self efficacy,” naturally chosen the concept of free will.

Our program for troubled girls is unique. We use a cognitive behavioral approach, as well as, motivational interviewing techniques and Dialectal Behavioral Therapy (DBT).  These are evidence-based, best practices in working with troubled youth. We really teach kids to think about how they think and monitor their inner dialogue, additionally, we work to extinguish long standing habituated negative behavioral patterns. By helping them understand and control their thoughts about themselves and their world, the girls in our program can access their own ability, capacity, and strength and bring about the changes they want in their own lives.

Our goal is that when these girls reach a fork in the road they will make decisions based on personal responsibility, accountability, and rational confidence.