What is Wilderness Therapy?

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Wilderness Therapy uses exploration into the wilderness to facilitate therapeutic change. Usually used for behavioral health issues in adolescents, Wilderness Therapy uses skills training, group exercises, and nature explorations to engage clients in counseling.

Counselors usually use Wilderness Therapy for groups of adolescents or young adults experiencing mental health concerns or substance use issues.

Wilderness therapists rely on the absence of any negative life influences (such as the pressure to engage in risky behaviors). Skills training can include starting a fire, finding and foraging for food, and building shelters.

Group exercises help bring clients together, mimic healthy family dynamics, and are free of toxic patterns of relating. Exploring the wilderness encourages clients to rely more heavily on themselves and the strength of the group.

The challenge of Wilderness Therapy includes physical activities, encouraging a mind-body connection. Wilderness therapy also encourages creativity, self-expression, and trust within oneself and the group. These dynamics can model and demonstrate healthy relationships with others that youth might not have in their life.

If you are interested in Wilderness Therapy for you or for a loved one, seek out a properly accredited and safe program, as placing youth in environments they are not used to can come with some risks.

Therapists Who Specialize in Using Wilderness Therapy

Aaron Galloway

Nevada City

California

I am a Licensed Professional Counselor in Nevada City, CA and also offer virtual sessions in California, Montana, and Colorado. It is my passion to collaborate with young adults and adults in their healing and self-discovery journeys. I strive to bring my clients cutting-edge therapy options to get to the root of their behavior patterns and help them develop updated ways of responding to their ...

J.P. Mertens

Colorado Springs

Colorado

As a counselor, I seek to create an environment where people feel safe, heard, valued, and honored. My style is very relational, collaborative, encouraging, and empowering using evidence-based models of therapeutic care. I feel that people can bring their frustrations, anger, fears, sadness, anxiety, ambivalence, and dissatisfaction into the counseling process. Throughout my 25 year career, I h...
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I integrate body-centered and strength-based psychotherapy with wilderness interventions to offer a holistic and creative approach to working with clients. I focus on supporting clients addressing eating disorders, trauma, anxiety, depression and sexual identity development. I am passionate about supporting gender diverse, non-binary and transgender clients from a gender-affirmative approach. M...

Samantha A. Field

Denver

Colorado

Sam Field is a licensed professional counselor, certified addiction counselor and trained extensively working with the LGBTQ community. Sam earned her MA in Wilderness Therapy from Naropa. She works towards providing a unique therapeutic approach blends talk therapy, wilderness and equine therapy, somatic trauma informed, mindfulness practices, and horticultural therapy. She offers a nurturing,...
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Angela Aaron

Boulder

Colorado

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