Wellspring Academies Clinical Program
The Clinical Program at Wellspring is designed to help improve all aspects of students’ emotional health and is a key component in their long-term weight loss success. Students receive intensive training in skills necessary for long-term weight control (such as self-monitoring, goal-setting and journaling) and learn to develop healthy thinking patterns and positive emotional responses to challenges they face in all areas of life.
One of the many benefits of the Clinical Program at Wellspring Academies is that students have a significant period of time to really work on the issues holding them back in their lives. The immersive environment of Wellspring creates a structure and consistency that allows for meaningful, long-term change.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Weight Loss
The Wellspring Clinical Program utilizes Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) for working with students on the emotional aspects of healthy living. Studies indicate that CBT has significant benefits for initial and long-term weight loss success. The CBT program at Wellspring is a very active, practical process of changing behavior, rather than the passive therapy often depicted in popular culture.
CBT helps students become very successful self-regulators who are better able to set goals, observe themselves systematically, stay committed and manage the stress of everyday living. Students learn to develop personal responsibility for their actions and to overcome whatever challenges might be causing them to resort to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as food and sedentary activity.
Behavioral Coaches
Wellspring students work with Behavioral Coaches who use CBT to quite literally “coach” them through the process of lifestyle change. Behavioral Coaches are Masters- or Doctoral-level mental health professionals who are trained and overseen by Dr. Daniel Kirschenbaum, Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences at Northwestern University Medical School and Clinical Director of Wellspring.
Students participate in a minimum of 3 sessions per week with their Behavioral Coach—one individual session and two group sessions. More sessions are scheduled as needed for specific situations. The combination of individual and group therapy allows students to process and overcome individual challenges, while also benefitting from the shared group experience of their peers.
Biology is Not Destiny
At Wellspring, we strongly believe in the “athletic metaphor” for weight control. Most of our students and campers arrive believing a range of negative thoughts about themselves, including the idea that they are “lazy” and not athletic. The truth is that biology does play a role in weight loss, and many of our students have biologies that make it more difficult for them to lose weight and keep it off. However, as we teach at Wellspring, biology is not destiny.
All Wellspring Academies students are “athletes in training” in that they are transforming their bodies in ways that their biology resists. Human biology isn’t designed to run a mile in 4 minutes or throw a fastball at 90 MPH. But through training and perseverance, these feats are common for elite athletes.
In the same way, the human body isn’t designed to lose weight and keep it off. Rather, our biologies were designed tens of thousands of years ago to store fat to survive famine. Biologically, we are all still “hunter-gatherers.” However, biology is not destiny. By mastering the Wellspring program, students can return to a healthy weight and stay there for the rest of their lives.
Family Involvement in the Clinical Program
Family members are an essential part of each student’s collaborative treatment team and are encouraged to attend free Family Workshops and be in regular contact with their child’s Behavioral Coach to discuss particular concerns. Families can also follow their child’s progress through a secure online portal that includes bi-weekly reports as measured across all aspects of the Wellspring program, as well as frequent picture updates.
