Clinical Aspects of the STAR Process

The STAR Process is led by highly skilled and professionally recognized psychotherapists. This intensive experience frequently enables participants to go beyond the limitations of the traditional therapeutic approach. It provides a context in which the therapeutic process can be safely and lovingly accelerated. STAR is not considered an alternative to therapy, but a powerful adjunct. We encourage participants who are under the care of a professional to continue therapy after STAR.

The STAR Process is a rich mixture of some of the most effective psychological processes available today. STAR is firmly grounded in established developmental models, professional psychological approaches, and proven therapeutic disciplines. STAR is a balanced approach addressing the whole person—body, mind, soul, and spirit.

Integrating the best of mainstream psychotherapy with the holistic approaches found in transpersonal therapy, the STAR process itself is eclectic. Although occurring in a group context, it is highly individualized.

STAR uses both cognitive and experiential methods, involving physical, mental, emotional, social, and spiritual aspects of the human experience. It accesses and utilizes both conscious and unconscious avenues to self-knowledge and self-healing.

Some of the processes and therapies incorporated into the STAR program include:

Art therapy
Birth regression (Findeisen)
Breathwork (Grof)
Emotional release work
Family sculpts (Satir)
Group processing
Guided imagery
Inner Child Work
Journaling (Progoff)
Lectures and cognitive exercises
Psychodrama
Writing assignments

The container for the work was strong, safe, and loving enough
for me to achieve healing not found in years of exploration through other modalities.
Recent Therapist Graduate

Who should attend a STAR retreat?

STAR is especially appropriate for clients in a transition or life crisis (see Personal Crisis and Smart Life Transitions). It is also excellent for those in recovery (especially for those dealing with "second-stage" recovery, see Recovery as a Lifelong Process), or for those desiring to move more deeply into understanding the root causes of their addictive behavior or destructive patterns.

Many who come and benefit from STAR are feeling a sense of emptiness, loss of perspective, or seeking a greater understanding and appreciation of themselves. A STAR retreat is also very helpful for those who feel they have no sense of meaning or purpose in their lives (see Personal Growth Retreat). Parents often come to STAR seeking better relationships with their children, and vice versa.

Some come to STAR who are under professional care and being treated with medications; generally this is no obstacle to full participation in STAR.

STAR expands the definition of recovery to include psychological addictions like self-sabotaging behavior, self-diminishment, projections of negativity, and other outer manifestations of internalized dilemmas—unconscious defense reactions and barriers to fulfillment. At STAR, recovery is from conscious and unconscious blocks which may have prevented participants from getting their deepest and most basic needs fulfilled. It is a recovery of spirit.

Many STAR graduates are active members of 12-Step programs, and report that STAR complements their recovery process. STAR deepens participants’ journey through the 12 steps by giving them the tools to go deeply within and surrender the destructive and addictive patterns of behavior which may hold sway over their lives. See Recovery as a Lifelong Process.

At STAR, participants learn to accept, with compassion, the long-repressed, wounded, and unbonded inner child, and learn to reparent themselves with trust and love. The results can be profoundly life-changing; participants are often able to move forward with internal cooperation and harmony, healing the fracture of the ego, the intellect, the body, the emotions, and the child within.

In STAR, survivors of childhood abuse discover that as whole adults they can genuinely protect and nurture themselves in new ways. They can allow nurturing by others as well. STAR can assist such people in moving beyond the fear, rage, sadness, and loneliness which are the souvenirs of childhood. The result is that participants are able to give up their addictions to unproductive behaviors and positively integrate their childhoods into their adult lives in a wholeness of body, mind, and spirit. See Trauma Awareness and Healing.

I have done so much therapy and self help
over the last 25 years that
I was skeptical of how much I would learn
or get out of STAR. I got so much the 1st night
 that I decided if that was all I got—it would be worth it!
Graduate—July, 2008

STAR will not accept applications from individuals who are unable to take care of themselves physically, or are a danger to themselves or others, or are actively abusing drugs or alcohol. Nor do we accept clients who have a severe psychiatric diagnosis such as schizophrenia or dissociative identity disorder. STAR does not provide a hospital setting; there are no locked units, and we do not prescribe or dispense medications.

We contact our graduates one year following STAR with an extensive survey to determine their assessment of the benefits of the STAR program. To review the findings of this follow up study, please see Survey Results from STAR Graduates.

We offer a generous discount to licensed practicing therapists enrolling in STAR. Details can be found at Why Therapists Choose STAR.