We are glad you asked...
Adventure therapy is best understood as an umbrella term for a diversity of therapeutic approaches. Common to adventure therapy practice is the use of outdoor settings and adventurous activities, such as rock climbing, canoeing, or backpacking. Adventure therapy practitioners are also diverse and interdisciplinary. Social workers, psychologists, counselors, marriage and family therapists make up just some of the professions contributing to our field. It is also important to mention that a range of adventure professionals often work with clinicians to facilitate different adventure therapy experiences. This includes the field staff at wilderness therapy programs or residential care staff at a group home.
Defining adventure therapy is a difficult undertaking. The Adventure Therapy International Committee acknowledged that in order to define adventure therapy we need to know where to draw the line that states where adventure therapy begins and ends. Researchers have used different definitions for the past half century to define our work. Even a simple google brings up a lot of different terms, such as Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare, adventure-based counseling, wilderness therapy, nature-based therapy, eco-nature, outdoor therapy, therapeutic wilderness camping, wilderness treatment…with all of these names, as our colleagues put it: “You begin get the picture!”
What an adventure therapy experience looks like will differ depending on who you are: If you are a teen, you may join a group or residential program. If you are an adult or family, you may see a private practitioner. You may go on hikes, play games, sit next to the creek, fish, climb or garden. If you are a therapist in Florida, you may use the waterway in addition to your office. If you are a group in Chicago, you may go on urban adventures!
Defining adventure therapy is a difficult undertaking. The Adventure Therapy International Committee acknowledged that in order to define adventure therapy we need to know where to draw the line that states where adventure therapy begins and ends. Researchers have used different definitions for the past half century to define our work. Even a simple google brings up a lot of different terms, such as Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare, adventure-based counseling, wilderness therapy, nature-based therapy, eco-nature, outdoor therapy, therapeutic wilderness camping, wilderness treatment…with all of these names, as our colleagues put it: “You begin get the picture!”
What an adventure therapy experience looks like will differ depending on who you are: If you are a teen, you may join a group or residential program. If you are an adult or family, you may see a private practitioner. You may go on hikes, play games, sit next to the creek, fish, climb or garden. If you are a therapist in Florida, you may use the waterway in addition to your office. If you are a group in Chicago, you may go on urban adventures!
For us in the Adventure Therapy Collective, it is easier to focus on the things we all agree upon. Adventure therapy is experiential, it uses movement and nature, and the key to it's success is the excellence of it's practitioners. That's what we are here to do, serve and support the growing community of practitioners.
Debating about what is or is not a certain therapy is nothing unique to adventure therapy. Practitioners claiming to provide the same therapy, no matter how manualized or regulated, will obtain different therapeutic outcomes. We know that this is common in all fields of therapy but is something under researched in ours. What we want is for people to be explicit and intentional with their work, illustrate the theoretical foundations of their approach, and comprehensively evaluate their services to find what factors are most important and why. We also want to create a space for people to discuss new ideas, such as the innovative wilderness therapy programs coming from Norway, the world’s most remote orphanage in Greenland that can run 90-day sled dog adventures, and those in private practice providing that one thing that’s a little bit new and different (like mountaineering therapy!) Just scrolling through the available adventure therapy research, we see a lot of positive outcomes. This is encouraging. What happened to facilitate those outcomes is still to be discovered, and we strive to be at the forefront!
One thing that is certain about adventure therapy is that we are an inclusive community. Though one practitioner might be solution-focused and the next trauma-informed, and there are so many conversations to be had and ideas to be shared. Adventure therapy is unique in that it usually operates in the outdoors under different therapeutic conditions. When compared to therapies that take place on the couch, we tend to see that what we do works for the same reasons: relationship, engagement, and an agreement on the purpose of the therapeutic interaction. In that case, we’re not much different. Still, there is a lot to learn about what adventure therapy practitioners can reliably do to achieve better outcomes. This is the research that the Adventure Therapy Collective is behind.
Debating about what is or is not a certain therapy is nothing unique to adventure therapy. Practitioners claiming to provide the same therapy, no matter how manualized or regulated, will obtain different therapeutic outcomes. We know that this is common in all fields of therapy but is something under researched in ours. What we want is for people to be explicit and intentional with their work, illustrate the theoretical foundations of their approach, and comprehensively evaluate their services to find what factors are most important and why. We also want to create a space for people to discuss new ideas, such as the innovative wilderness therapy programs coming from Norway, the world’s most remote orphanage in Greenland that can run 90-day sled dog adventures, and those in private practice providing that one thing that’s a little bit new and different (like mountaineering therapy!) Just scrolling through the available adventure therapy research, we see a lot of positive outcomes. This is encouraging. What happened to facilitate those outcomes is still to be discovered, and we strive to be at the forefront!
One thing that is certain about adventure therapy is that we are an inclusive community. Though one practitioner might be solution-focused and the next trauma-informed, and there are so many conversations to be had and ideas to be shared. Adventure therapy is unique in that it usually operates in the outdoors under different therapeutic conditions. When compared to therapies that take place on the couch, we tend to see that what we do works for the same reasons: relationship, engagement, and an agreement on the purpose of the therapeutic interaction. In that case, we’re not much different. Still, there is a lot to learn about what adventure therapy practitioners can reliably do to achieve better outcomes. This is the research that the Adventure Therapy Collective is behind.
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