Wilderness for Personal Growth

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Wilderness for Personal Growth Therapy.
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Types of Programs

• Wilderness Experience Programs (WEPs)
• generic term for all programs
• over 700 programs
• wilderness as teacher or as classroom
• Wilderness Discovery Programs
• Wilderness Therapy Programs
• now called Outdoor Behavior Healthcare (OBH)
• over 100 programs

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From reading assignment

• WEPs
• a few large many small
• high turnover, esp. among small ones
• about a third provide no minimum impact (leave no
  trace) training

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• Wilderness Discovery
• some but not intensive guidance
• subject of todays video

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Wilderness Therapy
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(No Transcript)
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Adolescents ... more at-risk in recent years due
to ... profound culture change, including
unstructured home environments in which both
parents are working, increase in ...
single-parent families, and a media culture that
bombards adolescents with images of sex, violence
and excitement -Russell et al. 1999. How
Wilderness Therapy Works.
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Wilderness Therapy/Outdoor Behavior Healthcare

• Intense, usually with one-on-one counseling
• Approx 10,000 adolescents served/year
• Expensive
• from 21 to 180 days, at from 270-440/day
• on average, only 40 of clients get some
  insurance coverage

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Works well for

• Attention Deficit Disorder
• Alcohol drug problems
• Behavior problems
• Depression
• Oppositional/defiant patients
• With committed parents

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Does not work well

• Anorexia
• Suicidal people
• Violent people
• Young children (most patients are in mid- to late
  teens)

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Does it work? Client self report Symptom scores
dropped from 71 at admission to 48 at discharge
(23-point drop) Parent assessment 100 at
admission down to 49 at discharge (49-point
drop) Decrease of 13 points is considered a
significant amount of symptom reduction.
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Why?
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Natural consequences ... in wilderness living
allow staff to step back from traditional
positions of authority ... This dynamic
dramatically restructures the clients
relationship with the therapist and field staff
... We dont have to get face to face with them
because the environment does that.
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• Some other possible explanations
• Cleansing (from alcohol other drugs, bad
  diet, poor exercise, etc.)
• Dealing with challenges
• Exercise/endorphins

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• Nature as healer - Muir, Ulrich
• Expertise of therapists
• Intense attention and Hawthorn effect
• Other? (See video. Class notes)

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• Video what to watch for
• Background experiences and problems of the
  students
• Individual challenges
• Group dynamics
• Leaders and their comments,
  especially concerning metaphor