Since the mid-1970's, people from all over the world and all walks of life have attended STAR Retreat workshops. Participants have included therapists and mental health professionals, physicians and surgeons, business leaders, attorneys, engineers, teachers, elected officials, political consultants, parents, students, musicians, writers, and more.
The reasons for coming to a STAR Retreat are as varied as the people attending. They include those who are dealing with or experiencing one or more of the following: depression, anxiety, low self-esteem, personal or professional burnout, relationship issues, grief and loss, personal growth, anger issues including anger management, codependent behavior, loss of life's meaning and purpose, life transitions, personal crisis, feeling "stuck" in one's process, blocked creativity, addictive and compulsive behaviors, trauma and PTSD, and stress.
We do not accept individuals who are unable to physically care for themselves, those who are a danger to themselves or others, and those who are actively abusing drugs or alcohol. We do not accept clients who have a severe psychiatric diagnosis such as schizophrenia or multiple personality. The STAR Retreat is not a medical facility. There are no full care units and we are not licensed to prescribe nor dispense medications.
Many people, who have experienced very little change after long-term psychotherapy, have seen rapid progress through the STAR Retreat. Many therapists refer clients to our program who simply need to get "unstuck" or who would benefit from intensive work on their core issues. Participants benefit from being able to deeply and continuously engage in their work 24/7 while at a STAR Retreat, as opposed to the "stop-start" nature of outpatient therapy.
STAR provides a safe and caring environment for the kind of self-examination that is required for in-depth personal growth. The unusually high ratio of staff to participants is invaluable in ensuring that each person receives the care and support needed to derive the maximum benefit from STAR. What also makes our program unique from other personal personal-growth or therapeutic programs is that we've taken the best techniques from a wide variety of well-established approaches and integrated them into a comprehensive, multi-layered program.
STAR is an experiential process aimed to help participants gain clarity and insight into the reasons behind the patterns of thought and patterns of behavior that have kept them from reaching their full potential. Our heart-centered approach allows participants to be less in their "heads" and more in tune with their heart-self or "feeling-self." Our synergistic approach allows us to respond to each individual's need to affect mind, body, and spirit. The most in-depth program of its kind, STAR offers a carefully structured process of accelerated education and healing.