The process starts with insight from the admissions staff and treatment team – and it builds in flexibility to change tracks along the way.
A potential patient first has an assessment call with the admissions team, a group of clinicians who determines whether someone is a candidate for treatment and recommends a Women’s Program track – or sometimes another program – based on that discussion. A patient then has an evaluation with a psychiatrist, who confirms the destined track. Upon admission to the program, a primary therapist and an orientation group provide information on what to expect. The Women’s Program team also meets daily to assess whether tracks are continuing to meet patient needs.
“Identifying the best fit for clients is a process that starts the moment they reach out to our Admissions department for an intake and lasts throughout the duration of their treatment – about eight to ten weeks,” says Ashley Shanahan MA, LPC, ATR-BC, ACS, clinical manager of the Women’s Program at the Eatontown site.
Shanahan notes that many clients find benefit in completing a full curriculum in one track and moving to another to learn additional skills, or incorporating lessons from other tracks in their individual sessions.
“We often see this in patients who come in for the Trauma track; as treatment progresses the team may recognize that a patient may benefit from the self-compassion skills in our Emotion Regulation track for trauma symptoms to decrease,” she adds. “In other cases, learning first about self-compassion skills can assist a patient in integrating education about trauma symptoms to decrease the intensity of their symptoms and achieve safety and stabilization. This flexibility allows the treatment team to tailor treatment to the patient’s presenting symptoms.”
All Princeton House Women’s programming has a foundation of DBT skills and functions as a Stage 1 trauma treatment program. This means the focus of treatment is on developing coping skills for safety and stabilization to prepare patients to move on to processing work in an outpatient setting, should they choose that path.
The five Princeton House Women’s tracks are:
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT) – This structured track serves those with trauma, addiction, and self-harming behaviors or suicidal ideation. Skills-based education promotes healing in a prioritized way when patients may be experiencing emotional overwhelm.
Trauma – Combining psychoeducation and coping skills, this track helps reduce the severity of PTSD symptoms that interfere with day-to-day life. Because this track teaches patients how to use coping skills to turn off PTSD-related internal alarm systems, it is important to note that those continuing to experience active trauma situations will not be placed in this track; rather, they will follow a different course of care designed to meet their specific needs.
Trauma and Addiction – This track helps patients with PTSD and addictive behaviors understand the relationship between trauma and substance use while providing targeted coping skills.
Emotion Regulation – Designed for those who have anxiety and depression, this track focuses on DBT skills while incorporating therapy aimed at increasing self-compassion. Often, those who are caregivers or individuals who are used to putting others’ needs above their own find support in this track.
Emotional Eating – This track blends DBT skills with mindful eating strategies to help those with emotion dysregulation and disordered eating. If an eating disorder is severe, patients may be referred for inpatient care at Penn Medicine Princeton Center for Eating Disorders.
For more information, visit princetonhouse.org/women.
Revised 2025.
