Wilderness Therapy Research Paper

Wilderness Therapy
Luis Salazar
University of Phoenix

Why Wilderness Therapy? Wilderness Therapy programs use the wilderness as a tool to quickly and effectively impact students/youth at risk. Experiential in nature, emotional growth wilderness programs provide struggling adolescents an opportunity to challenge themselves physically and emotionally while exploring the unhealthy behaviors that have prevented them from making progress in their lives. The wilderness program environment provides a supportive, non-judgmental arena in which students can process their limiting beliefs and core issues, and begin to view themselves and their abilities from a different perspective. There are several compelling reasons for choosing
Second Nature provides a structured yet simple lifestyle with feedback and healthy relationships. Because of the abundance of real challenges in the wilderness and its clear metaphor, our program safely mirrors the family and social lifestyle with structure, boundaries, feedback, relationships and challenges. In these surroundings, a client is more capable of examining and changing their internal processes.
Therapeutic Realism in a Natural Environment While your child continues to experience, react, struggle and make meaning, the treatment team and peer group prompt for conscious reflection; this imparts a potent self-observation unavailable in the evasiveness and distractions of their usual lifestyle.
Effective with Teenagers Wilderness interventions have been shown to be highly effective in gaining the attention of adolescents, especially that typically resistant to conventional therapy. Clinical expertise and a strong therapeutic focus provide opportunities to assess and intervene in the lives of adolescents experiencing problems ranging from a lack of motivation, poor socialization, declining school performance to hostile family relations, teen depression, oppositional behaviors and initial preoccupation or full-blown dependency of substance
Students begin to learn to accept responsibility for their actions, and to better understand the correlation between cause and effect, action and reaction. By taking advantage of the heightened sense of awareness that an outdoor wilderness setting produces, students are guided to a clearer sense of self, self-awareness, and self-confidence. The majority of wilderness therapy programs' staffs include licensed clinical counselors responsible for screening applicants, and developing and overseeing treatment plans for each student. Daily individual and group therapy, and the opportunity for psychological testing are standard within the therapeutically oriented environment, and activities are specifically geared to facilitate personal growth and