It’s Good to Try Something New

Pasadena Villa uses experiential therapy as a means of helping residents develop coping, life, and social skills. This therapy introduces residents to a guided activity and then encourages examination of the experience’s process, transfer of lessons learned to other appropriate areas of life, and encourages and supports continued change and improvement.

By providing action-oriented activities, often in unfamiliar settings, residents are challenged to eliminate preconceived expectations and use their developing social skills to continue growth and change. Experiential therapy depends on residents focusing on solutions and choosing appropriate, successful behaviors.

Guided activity includes experiences such as rock climbing, miniature golf, nature walks, artistic expression, yoga, horseback riding, and more. Physical activities help residents connect with their perceptions, patterns of thinking, and historical beliefs. Through structured activity, residents experience increased self-worth and learn new decision-making and coping skills.

Experiential therapy promotes empowerment and personal accountability for residents suffering from asperger’s syndrome, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, and other mental illnesses. This therapy is essential to maintaining lasting positive change for people dealing with mental health issues. As residents feel empowered, they build their ability to shift old, negative, self-defeating patterns to new, self-affirming, self-supporting ways of thinking.

The Villa Orlando and Pasadena Villa’s Smoky Mountain Lodge are adult intensive psychiatric residential treatment centers for clients with serious mental illnesses. We also provide other individualized therapy programs, step-down residential programs, and less intensive mental health services, such as Community Residential Homes, Supportive Housing, Day Treatment Programs and Life Skills training. Pasadena Villa’s Outpatient Center in Raleigh, North Carolina offers partial hospitalization (PHP) and an intensive outpatient program (PHP). If you or someone you know may need mental health services, please complete our contact form or call us at 877-845-5235 for more information.