By: Arthur Cooper
Submitted: 2010-12-13 13:11:27 | Word Count: 664
Eagle Ranch Academy is a residential treatment center that helps teens with depression. We are a working ranch, and we know the healing properties of nature and hard work in helping teens to deal with the issues they face at home. This time spent away from the pressures and distractions back in their home and social environment also provides a much needed break, both for the teen and for their parents, to heal and recapture some perspective.
Many teens experience adverse emotional reactions to their changing lives. A common issue is emotional fallout from their parents’ divorce. A divorce can lead to a sense that their world is unstable and engender fears of abandonment. Other teens have avoidance issues related to home life, and are at risk for running away (or have run away in the past). There are also a range of related issues that can result in depression, such as the pressure to do well at school, frustration in dealing with a diagnosis of ADHD or ADD, (which makes it difficult to concentrate), a negative body image resulting from obesity or an eating disorder, the loss of a friend or family member, and many more. Some teens suffer from clinical depression, a chemical imbalance in the brain that means they will probably have to be on medication for the rest of their life. However, they still need to learn positive coping strategies so they will be able to lead successful life.
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These situations are all difficult to deal with and can sometimes lead your teen down a road where they lose their grip on their lives. Their grades suffer, they become distant with their families, they stop socializing, they “act out” with anger, or they just stop participating in life.
Here at Eagle Ranch Academy, we can help. We provide a highly focused program which includes therapy, physical work, nutritional principles, proven clinical strategies, unique programs, and an atmosphere of loving care to teens battling depression. On our ranch, your teen will be placed in a class with 12 other students, with whom they will carry out a regimen that includes taking accredited academic classes, individual and group therapy sessions, physical chores on the farm, fitness classes, Emotional growth Seminars and completing a Life Coaching Skills program.
In addition to regular therapy, there will be an embedded therapist working as one of the instructors managing the class. This licensed professional will be able to provide support to your teen throughout the course of their day at critical moments when they need support. Thus, a teen plagued by depression and struggling to work out their issues could receive a 1 on 1 therapy session during the normal course of their day without knowing it.
Why do we do this? Teens struggling with depression are often not forthcoming in standard therapy sessions. We don’t want them to hide; we want to know what they are really dealing with so we can help them gain back their sense of self, overcome feelings of hopelessness and get the help they need.
At Eagle Ranch Academy, we are fully staffed with medical doctors and psychiatrists on hand to prescribe any medication a teen who is fighting depression might need. However, our goal is to encourage introspection, to help them identify their strengths, and to build on positive values and real life skills that will help them feel prepared to manage any situation, not to mention to manage their life after they complete the program. In short, at Eagle ranch Academy, our comprehensive program is meant to give long term results so a teen facing depression will have a better future, not one crippled by depression.
