Why do Adventure Therapy?

When I take people on an adventure therapy session on the river the overriding goal is simply to get people on the water. They slow down and relax . It is good to spend some time in a place that is conductive to reflection, to self esteem, and cooperation. These benefits only occur because the natural setting is so unique.

 "It provides you with the boundless entertainment of your
ever-shifting story. That's why it is always revising the challenges it sends
your way, providing your curious soul with a rich variety of unpredictable
teachings."  -John Wellwood ,Psychotherapist[1]

 I create an opportunity and leave it up to each student to learn whatever it is he or she is supposed to learn. People will still learn something and it's probably won't be something that I dictated that they learn. So what is would be the therapeutic angle of processing for such a group? Well,  it's a progression because we start to process from the very first moment.  People figure out that the processing is as much of a part of the program as the action. The people who I work with generally are pretty smart but nothing about them or anyone else suggest that they can process on their own. It is a bit to judgmental for me to think that people instinctively have Revelations about their experiences. I don't think they always do. Processing is a planned activity designed to give meaning. the purpose of processing increasingly shift away from making explicit predetermined goals and toward teaching people the skills for independent reflection so when left to their own devices they will process on their own

I once read about a therapist taking out Boys from an at risk group home. He says:

"Being here in nature is great it's my favorite place to be but nature also is a place where people have to take responsibility for themselves. If we mess up here there's no one to bail us out. If we pitch a tent in a bad place we get wet when it rains. If we wander off by yourselves we get lost. If we leave the food lying around and the raccoons steal it no one's driving to town to buy more food, we go without food. Guys we have consequences here. That's why we came. You guys are ready to handle the challenge. I wouldn't have brought you out here if I thought you weren't ready, but I need each of you to step up."[2]

Occasionally, during a Theapaddle session I might pull ashore to formally process but that is not the important part. The important part is for you to get into the rhythm of the river because I want you to consider whether the action of having reflection of the river is a pattern you might want to emulate in your being able to use in other aspects of your psychological process. The goals of processing should be in accord to the needs of the students/clients. It is okay that sometimes processing is just to help people process specific experiences. Other times it is to teach people processing skills so they can reflect independently on future experiences. The skills I have learned by doing this kind of therapy is that I notice it has helped me to slow down, take time for silence, ask the right questions to provoke deeper insight, and to keep learning myself in nature as much as I can. After all "we are the stories that we live"(Peavy, 1992).

[1] From his book *Perfect Love, Imperfect Relationships,* psychotherapist John
Welwood

[2] They explain that it is in fact the same as they do at the group home but that this kind of front-loading will make misbehavior obvious to everyone when it occurs. Taken from: The Processing Pinnacle An Educator's guide to better processing. By: Steve Simpson, Dan Miller, and Buzz Bocher