The clinical program at La Europa is the one of three core components of treatment used to help each student experience healing and develop competency. We use a combination of insight-oriented therapeutic approaches, expressive therapies, behavioral and family systems therapy to help students overcome a variety of challenging issues. Our clinical services are structured around three models or philosophies of change.

The Core Issues Model: Part of what keeps students stuck in repetitive, destructive behaviors is deeply internalized, negative beliefs about themselves. These beliefs are a result of the student's interpretation of external experiences. At La Europa, all our therapists are working to uncover the core messages that are keeping our young women from accessing their strength and competence. As these beliefs are brought to the surface, they can be challenged and changed. Core issues are explored in individual, group, art, recreation and family therapy.

Addictive Cycle: Many of our young women engage in behaviors that appear to provide relief from internal stress. This might include substance use, food-related behaviors (restricting, over-exercising, purging), computer use, sexual acting out (see our cutting edge treatment approach for this issue) or cutting. Unfortunately, behaviors that initially provide temporary relief become compulsive behaviors that cause the student further pain and shame. At La Europa, we help girls understand this cycle, what is driving them to engage in compulsive behavior and a wealth of tools for getting out of the cycle. Addictive behaviors are explored in group, individual, family and art therapy.

Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT): Insight-oriented therapy helps your daughter learn about herself and have a deeper understanding of what needs to change. Yet most people struggle to take insight and convert it into action. DBT helps our students translate their insight into concrete skills to change behavior.  Click here to learn more about DBT and how La Europa incorporates it into our program to change lives.



Girls at La Europa have 10 - 15 hours per week of therapy. Individual therapy happens 1 - 3 times per week depending on the needs of the student (see clinical staff biographies to learn more about specific approaches used). Group therapy happens daily for a minimum of 1 hour and a maximum of 3 hours (see below). Family therapy happens one time weekly for 1 - 1 ½ hours (see our page about the family program at La Europa).

Group therapy at La Europa is unique and individualized. La Europa therapists provide a wider variety of specialty groups than many other programs. These groups happen every day to help students understand their specific issues beyond the scope of individual therapy where these issues are also being addressed.

Our specialty groups include: 
  • DBT: All new students are introduced to the DBT skills and philosophy. Group prepares them to use DBT in individual therapy and the residential milieu.   Click here to learn more about DBT and how La Europa uses it to help our girls learn to emotionally regulate. 

  • Addiction Cycle: Although students are exploring these issues in individual therapy, research shows that group therapy is a very effective modality for breaking through denial of addictive patterns and deepening awareness of consequences of continued addictive behavior.

  • Sexual Reactivity: La Europa is unique in presenting this group and the concurrent program we use to treat this issue.  Click here to learn more about our powerful sexual reactivity program.

  • Adoption/Attachment: This group helps adopted girls to explore their feelings and challenges about adoption in a caring environment, learn about attachment and work to strengthen relationships with self and others.

  • Eating Disorder: Many young women attempt to manage emotions and create identity for themselves through their relationship with food. This group explores how food-related behaviors are affecting their physical and emotional health and social relationships.

  • Body Image: A common theme among most young women is a negative relationship with their bodies. Often the body becomes a target for feelings of incompetence, powerlessness and lack of identify. The goal of this group is to explore students' relationship with their bodies and help students build a more positive body image.

  • Social Skills: This group focuses on reading social cues, developing social intelligence and increasing social functioning through skill development, practice and group feedback.

  • Trauma: For students who have experienced trauma, this group provides important information about recovering from trauma and allows them to process through traumatic experiences at their own pace with the support of others.

  • Crucial conversations and conflict resolution: This group provides help for students who have difficulty with communication and resolving conflicts appropriately. Students work on understanding their struggles with communication and assertiveness and practice skills with group support.

  • Grief and Loss: Many of our students have experienced losses in their lives which have led to, or contributed to, withdrawal, depression, anxiety and anger. In this group, girls explore their losses and are supported to experience the feelings surrounding loss so they can move forward in their lives.

  • Family Issues/divorce: Some children are able to move through a divorce experience with relative ease while others become stuck in strong emotions of guilt, anger, sadness, loss and shame. This group provides a context for students to work through feelings about family issues and divorce in a supportive environment.

  • Solution/resilience: The purpose of this group is to help students learn to focus their attention on solutions and resiliency rather than problems and failure. This is a crucial shift in focus for students who have struggled with the belief "I can't" and need help to embrace "I can!"

We have two other weekly groups at La Europa. Each student engages in at least one art therapy group with a nationally certified art therapist who understands the use of various media to elicit certain responses from the students and is trained to identify art assignments that are developmentally and therapeutically appropriate. Click here to learn more about the infusion of expressive arts at La Europa for more detail about art, dance, movement and music therapy.

Each student also engages in at least one recreational therapy group per week. A recreational therapy group is different from a recreational outing. Most treatment programs provide recreational outings as does La Europa. But a recreational therapy group is a therapeutic group that uses a wide variety of recreational activities to help students work on therapeutic issues. Our recreational therapist is nationally certified to selected appropriate, targeted activities and process those activities in a way that promote insight and growth in our students.