THE RICC FRAMEWORK
The RICC clinical framework at Women’s Recovery in Denver.
Healing has an order, and it has room for your pace.
RICC stands for Regulate, Integrate, Cognition and Choice. It is the framework our team uses to organize care around safety, body responses, understanding and everyday decisions.
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A DIFFERENT STARTING POINT
You can understand a pattern and still feel stuck.
Insight can be useful without making a reaction disappear. Anxiety, numbness, panic or substance use may be connected to body responses, relationships and habits that need more than explanation. Our team looks at how these parts of experience interact and chooses approaches for the person in front of us.
THE FRAMEWORK AT A GLANCE
Regulate. Integrate. Cognition. Choice.
These four words describe areas of work in our program. They are not a fixed checklist, a validated standalone treatment or a promise of a particular result. Your team may return to any area as your needs change.
01 · Regulate
Build ways to notice and respond to stress and come back toward steadiness.
Explore regulation →02 · Integrate
Connect feelings, body experience, protective parts and history at a manageable pace.
Explore integration →03 · Cognition
Use reflection and insight to understand patterns and consider alternatives.
Explore cognition →04 · Choice
Practice responses that fit your values and current life.
Explore choice →STEP 01
Regulate: make room for steadiness.
Regulation work helps you notice signs of activation or shutdown and practice ways to feel more present. Clinicians may use grounding, breathwork, gentle movement, yoga, somatic approaches or AcuDetox when they fit your plan. There is no requirement to feel calm before you can speak about what matters.
- What may be happening: stress can show up as racing thoughts, tightness, restlessness or a sense of shutting down. The team asks what those signals mean for you.
- At Women’s Recovery: grounding, breathwork, movement, yoga or AcuDetox may be selected as part of a wider plan.
- What you might notice: a chance to pause, name a response and choose one supportive action. Changes vary and can take time.
That couch became one of the safest places I’ve ever known.Women’s Recovery graduate
STEP 02
Integrate: connect the pieces at your pace.
Stress and trauma can affect thoughts, body sensations, relationships and protective parts of self in different ways. Integration is the work of making sense of those experiences without pushing disclosure or moving faster than is useful. Depending on clinical fit, your team may use IFS and parts work, TIST, attachment or somatic approaches.
- What may be happening: memories, feelings, body sensations and protective patterns can feel disconnected or hard to describe.
- At Women’s Recovery: IFS and parts work, TIST, attachment work and somatic therapy may help you explore connections with a clinician at a manageable pace.
- What you might notice: greater curiosity about a reaction or an easier time naming what you need. This is an individual possibility, not a promised outcome.
None of you healed me. You couldn’t. But every one of you sat beside me while I learned how to heal myself.Women’s Recovery graduate
STEP 03
Cognition: put understanding to work.
Our 13-week curriculum gives group work a structure for values, stabilization, parts, shame, grief, attachment, boundaries, communication and the body. Your individual treatment plan determines which work is useful; the curriculum is not a fixed length of stay.
Thoughts and insight are part of care. Therapy can help you identify patterns, question beliefs and practice skills. The team brings these conversations together with body-based and relationship work, instead of assuming that insight alone must change every response.
- What may be happening: you may understand a pattern after the fact and still have difficulty responding differently in the moment.
- At Women’s Recovery: individual therapy, group discussion and skills practice can help you examine thoughts, beliefs and choices alongside body and relationship work.
- What you might notice: recognizing a trigger earlier or having language for a difficult interaction. A setback remains useful information for planning.
When I couldn’t find words out loud, I found them on paper. Writing gave my pain somewhere to go. It gave my hope a voice.Women’s Recovery graduate
STEP 04
Choice: practice what matters in daily life.
You may try new ways to respond to stress, set boundaries, ask for help or reconnect with people and priorities. Some choices will be easier than others. Treatment offers space to notice what happened and adjust, without treating a hard day as a failure.
- What may be happening: a familiar reaction may feel automatic when you are tired, frightened or under pressure.
- At Women’s Recovery: action planning, boundary practice, family systems work and step-down planning give daily life a place in treatment.
- What you might notice: one different response in a conversation, or a clearer sense of why an old response returned. The plan can be adjusted.
Strength looks like boundaries. Strength looks like accountability. Strength looks like self-love. Strength looks like compassion, without abandoning yourself.Women’s Recovery graduate
HOW THE FRAMEWORK MEETS YOUR WEEK
RICC can guide care at each outpatient level.
PHP offers 25–30 hours each week and is typically four to six weeks. IOP offers 9–15 hours across three to five three-hour sessions and commonly continues for another nine to twelve weeks. Outpatient care includes a weekly 1.5-hour group and individual therapy. Durations and entry points depend on assessment; some women enter IOP directly.
- A primary therapist, case manager and psychiatric care support individualized planning.
- Women go home each evening; this program does not provide detox, residential or inpatient care.
- With consent, the team can coordinate with outside clinicians and family members.
YOUR OWN PACE
Progress rarely follows a straight line.
You might need more grounding after a difficult week even when you have been doing well. The framework lets the team revisit what you need rather than assign you a stage. Your goals, safety and clinical response guide the work.
HOW WE FOLLOW PROGRESS
Measures support clinical conversations.
The team uses PHQ-9, GAD-7 and PCL-5 at admission and every two weeks to help discuss depression, anxiety and trauma symptoms. C-SSRS is used when suicide risk changes. Scores are interpreted with the full clinical picture; they do not define a person or guarantee a result.
Questions about RICC.
Do I have to talk about trauma right away?
No. Your team considers readiness and safety. You can discuss current needs while building skills for regulation and trust.
Will I follow four steps in order?
Not as a fixed checklist. The team may return to any area as your needs and goals change.
Is RICC a proven treatment on its own?
RICC is Women’s Recovery’s framework for organizing care. It is not presented as a validated standalone clinical intervention or as superior to other care.
Does everyone start in PHP?
No. Assessment may recommend PHP or direct entry to IOP. PHP provides more structure when that level fits.
What therapies may be part of my plan?
Depending on clinical fit, care may include IFS and parts work, TIST, attachment and somatic approaches, yoga, movement, interpersonal group work and psychiatric care. EMDR is not currently offered.
For clinicians.
RICC describes how our team organizes regulation, integration, cognitive work and choices within outpatient treatment. With client consent, we coordinate with referring providers about assessment, goals and transition planning.
If you can't believe that yet, borrow my hope. Just long enough to find your own.
Women’s Recovery graduate