{"id":1543,"date":"2012-07-30T09:32:12","date_gmt":"2012-07-30T14:32:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/?p=1543"},"modified":"2012-07-30T09:37:24","modified_gmt":"2012-07-30T14:37:24","slug":"wilderness-and-adventure-therapy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/?p=1543","title":{"rendered":"Wilderness and Adventure Therapy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Have you ever hear of wilderness therapy? \u00a0What about adventure therapy? \u00a0Maybe you’ve heard of outdoor behavioral healthcare? \u00a0Well, if you’ve heard them all or think I’m talking about giving therapy to the trees, there is actually a type of therapy that is experiential-based and often uses nature as a tool for change. \u00a0This is a type of therapy with many aliases. \u00a0It gets confusing. \u00a0I typically refer to the therapy as wilderness therapy or adventure therapy.<\/p>\n

The confusion only gets worse though. \u00a0Despite the term you choose to use, the definitions of this type of therapy seem to be exponential. \u00a0Perhaps this isn’t a bad thing. \u00a0Maybe this means that this type of therapy has endless possibilities of what it can look like, the types of interventions used, and where it can take place.<\/p>\n

Three of my very favorite research crushes, Michael Gass, Lee Gillis, and Keith Russell, were able to come up with a pretty great definition. \u00a0They use the term “adventure therapy” and define it as “the prescriptive use of adventure experiences provided by mental health professionals, often conducted in natural settings that kinesthetically engage clients on cognitive, affective, and behavioral levels\u201d (Gass, Gillis, & Russell, 2012, p. 1).\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So what ingredients do we have here? \u00a0Adventure, mental health professionals (including Marriage and Family Therapists!), nature, direct participation, physical movement, and not only are your brain and emotions getting a mental workout, but your body is also very much a participant in the process. \u00a0To me, this sounds like a recipe for the coolest kind of therapy around! \u00a0(Disclaimer: I’m totally bias.)<\/p>\n

If this sounds awesome to you or if you feel any tinge of intrigue, I\u00a0highly\u00a0<\/em>recommend that you read a book called “Adventure Therapy: Theory, Research, and Practice” by Gass, Gillis, and Russell (2012). \u00a0And yes, my three research crushes just had to one-up themselves and write the most amazing book together. \u00a0This book provides a fantastic compilation of what adventure therapy is, how it is used, the research involved, and much much more.<\/p>\n

I think it’s pretty cool how you can take something like therapy and put your own spin on how you want to provide it as the therapist. \u00a0But more on that later…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Have you ever hear of wilderness therapy? \u00a0What about adventure therapy? \u00a0Maybe you’ve heard of outdoor behavioral healthcare? \u00a0Well, if you’ve heard them all or think I’m talking about giving therapy to the trees, there is actually a type of therapy that is experiential-based and often uses nature as a tool for change. \u00a0This is a type of therapy with Read more…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":13,"featured_media":1544,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[121,133,32,120],"coauthors":[19],"class_list":["post-1543","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-therapy-2","tag-adventure","tag-experiential","tag-therapy","tag-wilderness"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/9780415892902.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/13"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1543"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1554,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1543\/revisions\/1554"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1544"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1543"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1543"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/collectiveinquiry.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcoauthors&post=1543"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}