Mindful Completion Model

The 8 elements of MCM: 

Some elements of the Mindful Completion Model are based on years of replicated studies, while others make use of new scientific findings. The blending together of these is the heart of WayPoint’s innovative approach to propel young men into a much-improved quality of life experience.

Psychotherapy Nutrition Cardiovascular Fitness Education Life Skills Executive Function Milieu Therapy Recreation/Service/Adventure

Psychotherapy

WayPoint clinicians draw from specific methodologies designed to treat anxiety disorders. These are: a) Formalized Assessment b) the Cognitive/Behavioral Model, c) the Mindfulness Model, d) the Exposure Model, e) the Experiential Model and f) Psychopharmacological Approaches.

  • Assessment—essential to effective treatment planning. Provides a way for measuring progress, identifying patterns of avoidance, strengths, and learning profile.
  • The Mindfulness Model—based on a state of active, open attention to the present, living in the moment, breathing, movement, and awakening to the experience.
  • The Cognitive/Behavioral Model—based on the following three concepts: a) you feel the way you think; b) anxiety may result from distorted, illogical thoughts; and c) when you change the way you think, you change the way you feel. Therapy is based on changing cognition and assisting the client to identify the origin of fears, so he can experientially confront them.
  • The Exposure Model—based on the notion that when a person is anxious, he is avoiding something he fears. At WayPoint, the individual is exposed to the very things that create fear and avoidance and have contributed to the faulty sense of self.
  • The Hidden Emotion Model—based on the notion that individuals cannot always identify the origin of fears. Such a person feels spontaneously anxious but does not know why. Therapy is based on “making the covert overt,” i.e. bringing the hidden emotion into the here and now and dealing with it.
  • The Experiential Model—guides the individual through the experience as it is occurring. Long standing fears and beliefs are actively challenged with current data.
  • Psychopharmacological Approaches—may be selectively utilized during the course of treatment. Not all students at WayPoint will require medications. Some students come to us on numerous medications that have only clouded their symptoms. Often it has reached the point where no one is quite sure which medication is actually helping. Our goal is removing all medications that are not absolutely essential to progress, and taking a conservative approach when medications are utilized.

The essence of WayPoint Academy’s specialized psychotherapeutic approach is in finding the right model for each individual student and matching it with the right intervention. Our Mindful Completion Model is designed to provide a host of therapeutic assignments and tasks that are designed to increase distress tolerance and emotional resiliency.

Nutrition

Nutritional deficiencies are proven to be a risk factor for depression. Such risk factors include: excessive consumption of sucrose (sugar/high fructose), excessive amounts of magnesium or vanadium, amino acids imbalance, excessive consumption of caffeine, and deficiencies of folic acid, vitamin B, vitamin C, calcium, copper, iron, magnesium, and potassium or biotin.

Young Adults & adolescents are notorious for their poor eating habits and are the highest consumer group of junk food. The Mindful Completion Model provides education, task completion, and promotes a mind-body-food connection. WayPoint residents are directly involved in meal planning and preparation. Each young man will acquire a greater understanding of nutrition, its many benefits, and will address physical, emotional, and spiritual well-being derived from food choices. Areas for completion include: maintaining a community garden, growing the food they eat, and implementing dietary approaches which clean toxins from the system.

Cardiovascular Fitness

Revolutionary science provides powerful insight into the neurophysiology of how exercise affects mood, anxiety, and learning. Research demonstrates that through systematic, strategic exercise, one can keep the brain at peak performance. Moreover, research shows that fitness has a direct effect on scholastic performance. Recent research in neurophysiology found that “exercise unleashes a cascade of petrochemicals and growth factors (insulin-like growth factor GF-1) and vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) that can reverse this process (i.e. cognitive impairment due to stress), by physically bolstering the brain’s infrastructure.” In summary, when it comes to young adults who suffer from anxiety and depressive disorders, fitness is more important than sports.

At WayPoint, cardiovascular exercise is implemented five or more days per week. Each morning, individuals participate in 50 minutes of exercise. Each resident wears a heart monitor and the results are recorded, assuring that cardiovascular efforts reach clinical thresholds. Consistent completion of exercise at targeted heart-rates becomes a building block toward self-esteem and identity formation.

Education

WayPoint provides a fully accredited, on site, high school curriculum with small class sizes and certified, endorsed faculty. WayPoint’s education philosophy meets individual student needs and provides a positive environment for learning, based on completion practices.

Because WayPoint teachers understand that avoidance and failure to complete tasks are central to adolescents’ struggles with anxiety, they and members of the therapeutic staff utilize a strategic, comprehensive approach for completing educational goals.

Life Skills

WayPoint’s Life Skills component provides emerging young adults with practical skills to lead independent and productive lives. These skills offer real-world applications and are diverse in nature and range of difficulty (i.e. knot tying to table etiquette). Skills acquisition serves a crucial role within the Mindful Completion Model, as our residents challenge negative personal beliefs while promoting confidence, successful outcomes, and independence.

Executive Function

Executive function is the coordinated use of specific skills for the purpose of completing a specific goal. Emerging research reveals that traditional IQ tests are weak predictors of academic success—and are very poor predictors of success in careers and relationships. Executive function is a far better predictor of these variables.

Executive skills cover a broad range of capabilities: initiating tasks, planning, organizing, strategizing, goal directed persistence, flexibility, metacognition, paying attention to/remembering details, and time management. Until recently, it was not known whether problems with executive functioning come before or after the onset of anxiety or depression, i.e. whether they are a cause or a symptom. However, recent studies support the idea that poor executive functioning is a symptom of depression and anxiety, rather than a cause.

Because of the tremendous role Executive Functioning plays in completion, developing and implementing strategies that improve these skills is a key component of the Mindful Completion Model. WayPoint has developed a unique and innovative method utilizing a culinary program as means of assessing and strengthening executive skills. Individuals will learn how to prepare meals of progressing complexity that will assess, challenge, and strengthen executive skills. The secondary benefit of this program is increased independence and awareness of nutrition.

Community

The community provides a setting where newly learned behaviors are field tested. Conversely, maladaptive and destructive behaviors are redirected toward positive patterns and, in extreme cases, not tolerated whatsoever.

The therapeutic milieu at WayPoint Young Adult consists of the following elements: code of conduct, community jobs & chores, and community meetings.

  • Code of Conduct—provides students with basic guidelines and expectations of behaviors which contribute to a safe and supportive environment.
  • Community Jobs & Chores—strengthens skills as individuals practice newly learned behaviors. At WayPoint, residents complete jobs and chores that contribute to healthy lifestyles and to the harmonious functioning of the community.
  • Community Meetings—designed to help residents learn negotiation skills, despite individual and collective differences.

Recreation/Service/Adventure

Recreation, service, and adventure are strategically woven into the Mindful Completion Model. Activities such as trekking, canyoneering, canoeing, skiing, and other activities are important aspects in the comprehensive services we provide. Our location provides world class recreation. WayPoint's recreation and adventure activites help young men achieve specific levels of proficiency. These activities enhance self-confidence and self-esteem, thereby contributing to symptom relief and identity development.

A core value at WayPoint is the concept that by helping others, we ultimately help ourselves. To reflect this value, individuals are given unique opportunities to assist aging veterans and underprivileged children, nurturing animals and birds at rescue shelters, and nature trail building.