Adventure therapy
Encyclopedia
Adventure Therapy as a distinct and separate form of psychotherapy
has only been prominent for less than 40 years. Influences from a variety of learning and psychological theories have contributed to the complex theoretical combination within adventure therapy (AT). The underlying philosophy largely refers to experiential education
. Existing research in adventure therapy reports positive outcomes in effectively improving self concept
and self esteem
, help seeking behavior, increased mutual aid, pro-social behavior, trust behavior and more. Even with research reporting positive outcomes it appears that there are many disagreements about the underlying process that creates these positive outcomes.
s, Trust activities, Problem Solving Initiatives, High adventure, outdoor pursuits, and wilderness expeditions. Some believe that in adventure therapy there must be a real or perceived psychological and or physical risk
generating a level of challenge or perceived risk. Challenge can be viewed as significant in eliciting desired behavioral changes. Positive behavior changes, which are synonymous with psychological healing, can occur through isomorphic
connections. An isomorphic connection is transferring learning from a specific experience to other life experiences. Isomorphic connections occur through the structure of framing and activity. Framing is the creation of a metaphor
ic theme for a given activity or a series of activities that relates to a targeted treatment issue. Debriefing or processing the experience is a discussion during or after the activity that is related to the frontload, individual, and group treatment issues designed to facilitate isomorphic
connections.
Adventure therapy encompasses varying techniques and environments to elicit change. These include cooperative games, problem solving initiatives, trust building activities,high adventure (rock climbing/rappelling, ropes courses, peak ascents); and wilderness expeditions (backpacking, canoeing, dog sledding, sailing, etc). Wilderness therapy, adventure based therapy, and long term residential camping are the most common forms of adventure therapy.
, Jewish and Christian
traditions. Tent therapy, emerged in the early 1900s. This therapy brought certain psychiatric
patients out of hospital buildings and into tents on the hospital’s lawn. Many patients showed improvement during this treatment that prompted a series of studies, which failed to present enough evidence to support efficacy. Literature on this therapy lasted approximately 20 years and then dropped off completely.
In the late 1930s this approach reappeared mainly as camping programs designed for troubled youth. This era influenced the present day use and extent of adventure therapy programs with adolescents. The format for these programs utilized observation, diagnosis and psychotherapy. One of the first of these programs was Salesmanship Club Camp based in Dallas, Texas
and founded by Campbell Loughmiller in 1946. His philosophy of adventure in therapy included the theory that the “…perception of danger and immediate natural consequences for [a] lack of cooperation on the part of [participants]…[after confronting danger] built self-esteem, [while] suffering natural consequences taught the real need for cooperation.” These ideas informed some adventure therapy programs
This period also saw the creation of Outward Bound
(OB) in the 1940s by Kurt Hahn
. Outward Bound was a direct response to Lawrence Holt
, part owner of the Blue Funnel Shipping Company, who was looking for a training program for young sailors who seemed to have lost the tenacity and fortitude needed to survive the rigors of war and shipwreck, unlike older sailors who, because of their formative experiences on sailing ships, were more likely to survive. In this way Outward Bound was engaging in a form of adventure therapy - intervening in the lack of tenacity through the use of challenging adventure training.
In the 1960s OB came to the United States
through the OB school in Colorado
Outward Bound programs in Colorado and other schools quickly began to use Outward bound as an adjunctive experience work with adjudicated youth and adults (one of the first programs in 1964 offered recently released prisoners a job at Coors Brewery if they completed a 23 day course). In the late 70's Colorado Outward Bound developed the Mental Health Project. Courses were offered to adults dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, being a survivor of sexual assault and other issues. In 1980 Stephen Bacon wrote the seminal text in Adventure Therapy The Conscious Use of Metaphor in Outward Bound which linked the work of Milton Erickson and Carl Jung
to the process of Outward Bound.
Project Adventure
, adopted the OB philosophy in a school environment and brought the ropes course
developed at the Colorado Outward Bound School into use at schools. Project Adventure staff including Karl Rohnke
are credited with developing many of the cooperative games, problem solving initiatives, trust activities, low elements, and high elements. PA first emerged in Hamilton-Wenham High School in Massachusetts
in 1972 with a principle named Jerry Peih, son of Robert Pieh founder of the Minnesota OB School. Jerry Peih wanted to bring the concepts behind the Outward Bound schools, developing self-esteem and self-confidence through mentally and physically straining and stressful situations, to classrooms. PA programs were often used at part of the health curriculum in PE programs.
Eventually Paul Radcliffe, a PA trained facilitator and school psychologist, Mary Smithy a PA staff member along with a social worker from Addison Gilbert Hospital, started a 2 hour weekly outpatient group. Eventually this model was incorporated into school psychological services and was called the Learning Activities Group. This later grew into Adventure-Based Counseling (ABC), a project adventure term that reflects the therapeutic use of adventure activities.
, John Dewey
, Kurt Hahn
, and Kurt Lewin
. These theorists also have been credited with contributing to the main theories comprising experiential education
. Experiential education is a theoretical component of adventure therapy. The ideas and thinking of Alfred Adler
, Albert Ellis, Milton Erickson, William Glasser
, Carl Jung
, Abraham Maslow
, Jean Piaget
, Carl Rogers
, B.F. Skinner, Fritz Perls
, and Viktor Frankl
all appear to have contributed to the thinking in adventure therapy. Adventure therapy is a cognitive-behavioral-affective approach which utilizes a humanistic existential base to strategically enact change through direct experience through challenge.
This theory, though, has been questioned extensively. These questions cover many issues. With all the importance that is placed upon adventure therapy as a therapeutic intervention
, the research is restricted to cooperation and trust, and even less research examines therapeutic techniques with adventure therapy and outcomes on pathology
. The adventure therapy research field is having difficulty answering the basic questions of how, what, when, where and who. Further research on the standards, requirements, education, and training for individuals conducting adventure therapy is required. The research is based upon the examination of self-concept and social adjustments. In a meta-analysis study to statistically integrate all the available empirical research on adventure therapy, 99 studies were found covering a 25 year span. Out of the 99 studies located, only 43 studies fit the criteria for analysis. Many of the studies excluded were dissertations and the authors stated that dissertation studies did not accurately represent the field of adventure programming. The 43 studies used varied in design, methods, and treatment goals. They report that the limited amount of studies for their meta-analysis is proof of the limitations in the research in adventure programming.
The major theme of these questions about adventure therapy is effectiveness. A group has emerged arguing that before any other question in adventure therapy can be answered the question what are the properties that influence the effectiveness of adventure therapy must be answered. This group argues that theory driven research instead of outcome driven research will answer this question. Outcome driven research means that outcomes are the source of explanations for AT theoretical structure. Outcome driven research has generated many conflicting findings that confuse theoretical structure and explanations of effectiveness. The outcomes in adventure therapy research are linked to existing psychological theories of change to explain, modify, or validate AT theory. The theories of change have upwards of 400 forms of therapy and related practices that have emerged from a conglomeration of psychological theories. When outcomes are tied to existing psychological theories within the 400 forms of therapy it is impossible to understand the underlying influences of AT.
With all the research to date and the numerous reports of positive outcomes, there is still little understanding of the underlying processes influencing these positive outcomes. This has caused extensive discussion concerning why adventure therapy appears effective in treating a multitude of DSM
related mental disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. Several researchers have attempted to explain the underlying process to adventure therapy.
Adventure therapy is described as non-traditional therapy allowing for the pre-therapeutic adolescent to experience their mental health issues, with several theoretical aspects: 1) it is a physical augmentation to traditional therapy for the purpose of a shared history with the participants and the therapist, 2) there is a sense of natural and logical consequences in the activities, 3) environment
should be structured into the activities, 4) a participant perceives risk, stress, and anxiety so the they can problem solve and generate their own sense of community
for feedback and behavior modeling, 5) participants will transfer their present attitudes and behaviors into the activities, 6) works with a small group of participants, and 7) requires a facilitator that models appropriate behaviors and guides the group towards adaptive self regulation that is based upon appropriate behaviors.
Adventure therapy has normalizing effects on deficits in delinquent adolescent’s developmental process, as a process of moving into formal operational thinking which is achieved through the experiential learning theories. A therapist holds the skills to make the adventure experience a therapy. The theoretical basis of adventure therapy describes the participant as a learning being who achieves their greatest learning outside the classroom, through challenge and perceived risk, promoting social skills through experiencing a group challenge mixed with affect, cognition
, psychomotor
activity and formal operational thinking generated through metaphor. Experiential learning becomes adventure therapy when the activities are planned and implemented as vehicles for patients to address individual treatment goals. Adventure experiences molded into a more therapeutic group model ran by the therapist can have a more significant effect than the one day intervention run by counselors. It is important to have the clinician as an integral part of the adventure therapy process so that there can be a strong transference of the adventure experience to other aspects of the therapeutic process.
Baldwin, Persing, and Magnuson, though, report that many of these explanations are “…folk pedagogies…” that lack thorough empirical evidence. Adventure therapy research has focused on outcomes without exploring theoretical structure. The focus of AT research needs to concentrate on testing and validating theoretical structure. Adventure therapy’s theoretical structure must be studied and documented. After a theoretical structure is validated then a discussion on outcomes can occur.
areas reported lasting improvement in behavior over a six-month period. Another study on adventure therapy effectiveness reports that adventure therapy is effective because specifically designed activities can bring about specific outcomes.
Adventure therapy is further viewed as effective because of the apparent positive effects in treating developmental issues with juvenile offenders and adolescent offenders with drug abuse
and addiction
issues. The effectiveness of adventure therapy with offenders with drug abuse and addiction issues in mental health treatment is related to the characteristics present in addicted offenders. They “…(1) need more structure, [and] (2) they work better with an informal, tactile-kinesthetic design….” Adventure therapy as treatment is equally effective for adjudicated youth and other adolescent populations. 62.2% of adolescents who participated in an adventure therapy group are at an advantage for coping with adolescent issues than adolescents that did not. There is a 12.2% improvement in self concept for adolescents who participate in adventure therapy. Adolescents are approximately 30% better off in their ability to cope with mental health issues than those that do not participate in a psychotherapeutic treatment making the implication that adventure therapy effectiveness is comparable to the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatment.
The concepts contributing to adventure therapy effectiveness are: increases in self esteem, self concept, self efficacy, self perceptions, problem solving, locus of control
, behavioral and cognitive development
, decreases in depression
, decrease in conduct disordered behaviors, overall positive behavioral changes, improved attitude, and that adventure therapy generates a sense of individual reward. Further aspects that contribute to adventure therapy’s effectiveness are that it: increases group cohesion, aids in diagnosing conduct disorders in adolescents, improves psychosocial related difficulties, is effective in treating drug addicted and juvenile youth, treats sensation seeking behaviors, improves clinical functioning, facilitates connecting participants with their therapist and treatment issues, and increases interpersonal relatedness.
When comparing the reduction in recidivism rates with traditional programs and programs with adventure therapy, programs using adventure therapy have lower recidivism. There is an increases in interpersonal relatedness, which has been describe as the most important factor for improving mental health issues.
Psychotherapy
Psychotherapy is a general term referring to any form of therapeutic interaction or treatment contracted between a trained professional and a client or patient; family, couple or group...
has only been prominent for less than 40 years. Influences from a variety of learning and psychological theories have contributed to the complex theoretical combination within adventure therapy (AT). The underlying philosophy largely refers to experiential education
Experiential education
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is mistakenly used interchangeably with experiential learning...
. Existing research in adventure therapy reports positive outcomes in effectively improving self concept
Self image
A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change, that depicts not only details that are potentially available to objective investigation by others A person's self-image is the mental picture, generally of a kind that is quite resistant to change,...
and self esteem
Self-esteem
Self-esteem is a term in psychology to reflect a person's overall evaluation or appraisal of his or her own worth. Self-esteem encompasses beliefs and emotions such as triumph, despair, pride and shame: some would distinguish how 'the self-concept is what we think about the self; self-esteem, the...
, help seeking behavior, increased mutual aid, pro-social behavior, trust behavior and more. Even with research reporting positive outcomes it appears that there are many disagreements about the underlying process that creates these positive outcomes.
Definition
Adventure therapy is the creation of opportunities to explore the unknown in a safe environment through adventure activities. Often adventure therapy is conducted in a group or family context, though increasingly adventure therapy is being used with individuals. Adventure therapy approaches psychological treatment through experience and action within cooperative gameCooperative game
In game theory, a cooperative game is a game where groups of players may enforce cooperative behaviour, hence the game is a competition between coalitions of players, rather than between individual players...
s, Trust activities, Problem Solving Initiatives, High adventure, outdoor pursuits, and wilderness expeditions. Some believe that in adventure therapy there must be a real or perceived psychological and or physical risk
Risk
Risk is the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss . The notion implies that a choice having an influence on the outcome exists . Potential losses themselves may also be called "risks"...
generating a level of challenge or perceived risk. Challenge can be viewed as significant in eliciting desired behavioral changes. Positive behavior changes, which are synonymous with psychological healing, can occur through isomorphic
Isomorphism (sociology)
In sociology, an isomorphism is a similarity of the processes or structure of one organization to those of another, be it the result of imitation or independent development under similar constraints...
connections. An isomorphic connection is transferring learning from a specific experience to other life experiences. Isomorphic connections occur through the structure of framing and activity. Framing is the creation of a metaphor
Metaphor
A metaphor is a literary figure of speech that uses an image, story or tangible thing to represent a less tangible thing or some intangible quality or idea; e.g., "Her eyes were glistening jewels." Metaphor may also be used for any rhetorical figures of speech that achieve their effects via...
ic theme for a given activity or a series of activities that relates to a targeted treatment issue. Debriefing or processing the experience is a discussion during or after the activity that is related to the frontload, individual, and group treatment issues designed to facilitate isomorphic
Isomorphism (Gestalt psychology)
In Gestalt psychology, isomorphism refers to a correspondence between a stimulus array and the brain state created by that stimulus. For example, in the phi phenomenon in which a pair of alternating and spatially separated patches of light create the illusion of motion, it is argued that the brain...
connections.
Adventure therapy encompasses varying techniques and environments to elicit change. These include cooperative games, problem solving initiatives, trust building activities,high adventure (rock climbing/rappelling, ropes courses, peak ascents); and wilderness expeditions (backpacking, canoeing, dog sledding, sailing, etc). Wilderness therapy, adventure based therapy, and long term residential camping are the most common forms of adventure therapy.
History
The use of adventure as a part of healing process can be traced back in history to many cultures including Native AmericanIndigenous peoples of the Americas
The indigenous peoples of the Americas are the pre-Columbian inhabitants of North and South America, their descendants and other ethnic groups who are identified with those peoples. Indigenous peoples are known in Canada as Aboriginal peoples, and in the United States as Native Americans...
, Jewish and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
traditions. Tent therapy, emerged in the early 1900s. This therapy brought certain psychiatric
Psychiatry
Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities...
patients out of hospital buildings and into tents on the hospital’s lawn. Many patients showed improvement during this treatment that prompted a series of studies, which failed to present enough evidence to support efficacy. Literature on this therapy lasted approximately 20 years and then dropped off completely.
In the late 1930s this approach reappeared mainly as camping programs designed for troubled youth. This era influenced the present day use and extent of adventure therapy programs with adolescents. The format for these programs utilized observation, diagnosis and psychotherapy. One of the first of these programs was Salesmanship Club Camp based in Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
and founded by Campbell Loughmiller in 1946. His philosophy of adventure in therapy included the theory that the “…perception of danger and immediate natural consequences for [a] lack of cooperation on the part of [participants]…[after confronting danger] built self-esteem, [while] suffering natural consequences taught the real need for cooperation.” These ideas informed some adventure therapy programs
This period also saw the creation of Outward Bound
Outward Bound
Outward Bound is an international, non-profit, independent, outdoor educationorganization with approximately 40 schools around the world and 200,000 participants per year...
(OB) in the 1940s by Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn
Kurt Martin Hahn was a German educator whose philosophies are considered internationally influential.-Biography:...
. Outward Bound was a direct response to Lawrence Holt
Lawrence Holt
Lawrence Holt, from the Blue Funnel Shipping Line, was co-founder of Outward Bound in 1941, along with renowned educator, Kurt Hahn.According to Heathcote , "for five years, Lawrence Holt persuaded his partners to underwrite...
, part owner of the Blue Funnel Shipping Company, who was looking for a training program for young sailors who seemed to have lost the tenacity and fortitude needed to survive the rigors of war and shipwreck, unlike older sailors who, because of their formative experiences on sailing ships, were more likely to survive. In this way Outward Bound was engaging in a form of adventure therapy - intervening in the lack of tenacity through the use of challenging adventure training.
In the 1960s OB came to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
through the OB school in Colorado
Colorado
Colorado is a U.S. state that encompasses much of the Rocky Mountains as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the Great Plains...
Outward Bound programs in Colorado and other schools quickly began to use Outward bound as an adjunctive experience work with adjudicated youth and adults (one of the first programs in 1964 offered recently released prisoners a job at Coors Brewery if they completed a 23 day course). In the late 70's Colorado Outward Bound developed the Mental Health Project. Courses were offered to adults dealing with substance abuse, mental illness, being a survivor of sexual assault and other issues. In 1980 Stephen Bacon wrote the seminal text in Adventure Therapy The Conscious Use of Metaphor in Outward Bound which linked the work of Milton Erickson and Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
to the process of Outward Bound.
Project Adventure
Project Adventure
Project Adventure is an international nonprofit education organization based in Beverly, Massachusetts. The mission of Project Adventure is to provide leadership in the expansion of adventure-based experiential programming.-History:...
, adopted the OB philosophy in a school environment and brought the ropes course
Ropes course
A ropes course is a challenging outdoor personal development and team building activity which usually consists of high and/or low elements. Low elements take place on the ground or only a few feet above the ground...
developed at the Colorado Outward Bound School into use at schools. Project Adventure staff including Karl Rohnke
Karl Rohnke
Karl Rohnke is a key figure in the development of adventure education, and was instrumental in the creation of Project Adventure in the early 1970s.-Biography:...
are credited with developing many of the cooperative games, problem solving initiatives, trust activities, low elements, and high elements. PA first emerged in Hamilton-Wenham High School in Massachusetts
Massachusetts
The Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a state in the New England region of the northeastern United States of America. It is bordered by Rhode Island and Connecticut to the south, New York to the west, and Vermont and New Hampshire to the north; at its east lies the Atlantic Ocean. As of the 2010...
in 1972 with a principle named Jerry Peih, son of Robert Pieh founder of the Minnesota OB School. Jerry Peih wanted to bring the concepts behind the Outward Bound schools, developing self-esteem and self-confidence through mentally and physically straining and stressful situations, to classrooms. PA programs were often used at part of the health curriculum in PE programs.
Eventually Paul Radcliffe, a PA trained facilitator and school psychologist, Mary Smithy a PA staff member along with a social worker from Addison Gilbert Hospital, started a 2 hour weekly outpatient group. Eventually this model was incorporated into school psychological services and was called the Learning Activities Group. This later grew into Adventure-Based Counseling (ABC), a project adventure term that reflects the therapeutic use of adventure activities.
Theory
Adventure therapy theory draws from a mixture of learning and psychological theories. The learning theories include contributions from Albert BanduraAlbert Bandura
Albert Bandura is a psychologist and the David Starr Jordan Professor Emeritus of Social Science in Psychology at Stanford University...
, John Dewey
John Dewey
John Dewey was an American philosopher, psychologist and educational reformer whose ideas have been influential in education and social reform. Dewey was an important early developer of the philosophy of pragmatism and one of the founders of functional psychology...
, Kurt Hahn
Kurt Hahn
Kurt Martin Hahn was a German educator whose philosophies are considered internationally influential.-Biography:...
, and Kurt Lewin
Kurt Lewin
Kurt Zadek Lewin was a German-American psychologist, known as one of the modern pioneers of social, organizational, and applied psychology....
. These theorists also have been credited with contributing to the main theories comprising experiential education
Experiential education
Experiential education is a philosophy of education that describes the process that occurs between a teacher and student that infuses direct experience with the learning environment and content. The term is mistakenly used interchangeably with experiential learning...
. Experiential education is a theoretical component of adventure therapy. The ideas and thinking of Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler
Alfred Adler was an Austrian medical doctor, psychotherapist, and founder of the school of individual psychology. In collaboration with Sigmund Freud and a small group of Freud's colleagues, Adler was among the co-founders of the psychoanalytic movement as a core member of the Vienna...
, Albert Ellis, Milton Erickson, William Glasser
William Glasser
William Glasser, M.D. is an American psychiatrist.Born in Cleveland, Ohio, he is the developer of reality therapy and choice theory...
, Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
, Abraham Maslow
Abraham Maslow
Abraham Harold Maslow was an American professor of psychology at Brandeis University, Brooklyn College, New School for Social Research and Columbia University who created Maslow's hierarchy of needs...
, Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget
Jean Piaget was a French-speaking Swiss developmental psychologist and philosopher known for his epistemological studies with children. His theory of cognitive development and epistemological view are together called "genetic epistemology"....
, Carl Rogers
Carl Rogers
Carl Ransom Rogers was an influential American psychologist and among the founders of the humanistic approach to psychology...
, B.F. Skinner, Fritz Perls
Fritz Perls
Friedrich Salomon Perls , better known as Fritz Perls, was a noted German-born psychiatrist and psychotherapist of Jewish descent....
, and Viktor Frankl
Viktor Frankl
Viktor Emil Frankl M.D., Ph.D. was an Austrian neurologist and psychiatrist as well as a Holocaust survivor. Frankl was the founder of logotherapy, which is a form of Existential Analysis, the "Third Viennese School of Psychotherapy"...
all appear to have contributed to the thinking in adventure therapy. Adventure therapy is a cognitive-behavioral-affective approach which utilizes a humanistic existential base to strategically enact change through direct experience through challenge.
This theory, though, has been questioned extensively. These questions cover many issues. With all the importance that is placed upon adventure therapy as a therapeutic intervention
Intervention (counseling)
An intervention is an orchestrated attempt by one, or often many, people to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis, or other serious problem. The term intervention is most often used when the traumatic event involves addiction to drugs...
, the research is restricted to cooperation and trust, and even less research examines therapeutic techniques with adventure therapy and outcomes on pathology
Pathology
Pathology is the precise study and diagnosis of disease. The word pathology is from Ancient Greek , pathos, "feeling, suffering"; and , -logia, "the study of". Pathologization, to pathologize, refers to the process of defining a condition or behavior as pathological, e.g. pathological gambling....
. The adventure therapy research field is having difficulty answering the basic questions of how, what, when, where and who. Further research on the standards, requirements, education, and training for individuals conducting adventure therapy is required. The research is based upon the examination of self-concept and social adjustments. In a meta-analysis study to statistically integrate all the available empirical research on adventure therapy, 99 studies were found covering a 25 year span. Out of the 99 studies located, only 43 studies fit the criteria for analysis. Many of the studies excluded were dissertations and the authors stated that dissertation studies did not accurately represent the field of adventure programming. The 43 studies used varied in design, methods, and treatment goals. They report that the limited amount of studies for their meta-analysis is proof of the limitations in the research in adventure programming.
The major theme of these questions about adventure therapy is effectiveness. A group has emerged arguing that before any other question in adventure therapy can be answered the question what are the properties that influence the effectiveness of adventure therapy must be answered. This group argues that theory driven research instead of outcome driven research will answer this question. Outcome driven research means that outcomes are the source of explanations for AT theoretical structure. Outcome driven research has generated many conflicting findings that confuse theoretical structure and explanations of effectiveness. The outcomes in adventure therapy research are linked to existing psychological theories of change to explain, modify, or validate AT theory. The theories of change have upwards of 400 forms of therapy and related practices that have emerged from a conglomeration of psychological theories. When outcomes are tied to existing psychological theories within the 400 forms of therapy it is impossible to understand the underlying influences of AT.
With all the research to date and the numerous reports of positive outcomes, there is still little understanding of the underlying processes influencing these positive outcomes. This has caused extensive discussion concerning why adventure therapy appears effective in treating a multitude of DSM
DSM
-Business:* DSM , an international life science and performance materials company from the Netherlands* Delhi school of music, a music school in India...
related mental disorders in children, adolescents, and adults. Several researchers have attempted to explain the underlying process to adventure therapy.
Adventure therapy is described as non-traditional therapy allowing for the pre-therapeutic adolescent to experience their mental health issues, with several theoretical aspects: 1) it is a physical augmentation to traditional therapy for the purpose of a shared history with the participants and the therapist, 2) there is a sense of natural and logical consequences in the activities, 3) environment
Social environment
The social environment of an individual, also called social context or milieu, is the culture that s/he was educated or lives in, and the people and institutions with whom the person interacts....
should be structured into the activities, 4) a participant perceives risk, stress, and anxiety so the they can problem solve and generate their own sense of community
Community
The term community has two distinct meanings:*a group of interacting people, possibly living in close proximity, and often refers to a group that shares some common values, and is attributed with social cohesion within a shared geographical location, generally in social units larger than a household...
for feedback and behavior modeling, 5) participants will transfer their present attitudes and behaviors into the activities, 6) works with a small group of participants, and 7) requires a facilitator that models appropriate behaviors and guides the group towards adaptive self regulation that is based upon appropriate behaviors.
Adventure therapy has normalizing effects on deficits in delinquent adolescent’s developmental process, as a process of moving into formal operational thinking which is achieved through the experiential learning theories. A therapist holds the skills to make the adventure experience a therapy. The theoretical basis of adventure therapy describes the participant as a learning being who achieves their greatest learning outside the classroom, through challenge and perceived risk, promoting social skills through experiencing a group challenge mixed with affect, cognition
Cognition
In science, cognition refers to mental processes. These processes include attention, remembering, producing and understanding language, solving problems, and making decisions. Cognition is studied in various disciplines such as psychology, philosophy, linguistics, and computer science...
, psychomotor
Psychomotor
Psychomotor can refer to:* Psychomotor learning* Psychomotor retardation* Psychomotor agitation...
activity and formal operational thinking generated through metaphor. Experiential learning becomes adventure therapy when the activities are planned and implemented as vehicles for patients to address individual treatment goals. Adventure experiences molded into a more therapeutic group model ran by the therapist can have a more significant effect than the one day intervention run by counselors. It is important to have the clinician as an integral part of the adventure therapy process so that there can be a strong transference of the adventure experience to other aspects of the therapeutic process.
Baldwin, Persing, and Magnuson, though, report that many of these explanations are “…folk pedagogies…” that lack thorough empirical evidence. Adventure therapy research has focused on outcomes without exploring theoretical structure. The focus of AT research needs to concentrate on testing and validating theoretical structure. Adventure therapy’s theoretical structure must be studied and documented. After a theoretical structure is validated then a discussion on outcomes can occur.
Effectiveness
Even though there are certain arenas that question the theory of adventure therapy, the practice of adventure therapy continues because of numerous reported positive outcomes in adventure therapy research. A study of the effects of adventure therapy on 266 high risk youth in ruralRural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...
areas reported lasting improvement in behavior over a six-month period. Another study on adventure therapy effectiveness reports that adventure therapy is effective because specifically designed activities can bring about specific outcomes.
Adventure therapy is further viewed as effective because of the apparent positive effects in treating developmental issues with juvenile offenders and adolescent offenders with drug abuse
Drug abuse
Substance abuse, also known as drug abuse, refers to a maladaptive pattern of use of a substance that is not considered dependent. The term "drug abuse" does not exclude dependency, but is otherwise used in a similar manner in nonmedical contexts...
and addiction
Substance dependence
The section about substance dependence in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not use the word addiction at all. It explains:...
issues. The effectiveness of adventure therapy with offenders with drug abuse and addiction issues in mental health treatment is related to the characteristics present in addicted offenders. They “…(1) need more structure, [and] (2) they work better with an informal, tactile-kinesthetic design….” Adventure therapy as treatment is equally effective for adjudicated youth and other adolescent populations. 62.2% of adolescents who participated in an adventure therapy group are at an advantage for coping with adolescent issues than adolescents that did not. There is a 12.2% improvement in self concept for adolescents who participate in adventure therapy. Adolescents are approximately 30% better off in their ability to cope with mental health issues than those that do not participate in a psychotherapeutic treatment making the implication that adventure therapy effectiveness is comparable to the effectiveness of psychotherapeutic treatment.
The concepts contributing to adventure therapy effectiveness are: increases in self esteem, self concept, self efficacy, self perceptions, problem solving, locus of control
Locus of control
Locus of control is a theory in personality psychology referring to the extent to which individuals believe that they can control events that affect them. Understanding of the concept was developed by Julian B...
, behavioral and cognitive development
Cognitive development
Cognitive development is a field of study in neuroscience and psychology focusing on a child's development in terms of information processing, conceptual resources, perceptual skill, language learning, and other aspects of brain development and cognitive psychology compared to an adult's point of...
, decreases in depression
Clinical depression
Major depressive disorder is a mental disorder characterized by an all-encompassing low mood accompanied by low self-esteem, and by loss of interest or pleasure in normally enjoyable activities...
, decrease in conduct disordered behaviors, overall positive behavioral changes, improved attitude, and that adventure therapy generates a sense of individual reward. Further aspects that contribute to adventure therapy’s effectiveness are that it: increases group cohesion, aids in diagnosing conduct disorders in adolescents, improves psychosocial related difficulties, is effective in treating drug addicted and juvenile youth, treats sensation seeking behaviors, improves clinical functioning, facilitates connecting participants with their therapist and treatment issues, and increases interpersonal relatedness.
When comparing the reduction in recidivism rates with traditional programs and programs with adventure therapy, programs using adventure therapy have lower recidivism. There is an increases in interpersonal relatedness, which has been describe as the most important factor for improving mental health issues.
External links
- Adventure Therapy & Wilderness/Nature Therapy (wilderdom.com)
- Canadian Adventure Therapy Symposium(adventuretherapy.ca)