11/14: Where am I headed? (said the little birdie known as Adventure Therapy)

Question: Project where AT might be in 10 years

Answer:

Considering this is going to be my line of work after college, I hope that AT will make progress in a positive direction at a reasonable pace.  I feel like because of the "go green" and other environmental pushes that we are experiencing today could potentially lead to a more outdoor friendly approach to therapy, and I have the inclination that having 10 years under its belt will really help Adventure Therapy develop into a even more credible type of therapy.

I feel like main challenge that I see Adventure Therapy facing is research.  Being able to compare a experimental group to a control group is something that I feel could benefit and show the true potential of Adventure Therapy programs.  If people where able to see more research done in Adventure Therapy, and if the funding was available, people could better understand the true potential of AT.  I feel like without this research in 10 years AT might still only be serving to a limited audience, those upperclass that can afford to partake in Adventure Therapy programs.  The average cost of a Adventure therapy program is simply not affordable and thus unacceptable to a lot of populations which could benefit.

Fortunately, I feel like there are companies such as the Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Industry Council that are going to help establish a foundation for further research.  Founded in 1997, representatives from fourteen different locations are now members of a organization that stands to set a higher standard for excellence in wilderness treatments for adolescents.  OBHIC aims to work to advance the field through best practice, effective treatment and evidence-based research.  They have a set of standards for what they determine to be a highly effective form of treatment.  This kind of organization has already helped to fill the research gap which I mentioned earlier.  For one of their accredited organizations, Summit Achievement, a case study can be pulled up that support Adventure Therapy as a more effective form of treatment than other traditional treatments.  This case study which drew information from eight different OBH programs.  The results of this study by Keith Russell in 2001 showed significantly significant reduction in presenting symptoms for admission to discharge.

With all of this in mind, I feel like the future of Adventure Therapy is unknown but vastly depends on evidence based research conducted in the field.  This research could really help promote the field in amazing new ways, helping support its growth for more varied populations.
Questions that I have about creating and promoting a future for Adventure Therapy is:
Where will funding for research come from?
How do we inform these funders about the importance and benefits of funding for the field of Adventure Therapy?

References:
Gass, Michael A., Lee Gillis, and Keith C. Russell. (2012).  Adventure Therapy: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Routledge

Summit Achievement (2013). Youth Outcome Study. Retrieved from http://www.summitachievement.com/wp/menu/youth-outcome-study

Conway, J. (n.d.). About Us. Retrieved from http://obhic.com/about.html

2: Timeline

After collecting my PDF timeline of events in Adventure Therapy I went on to conquer the World Wide Web’s version of a timeline for Psychotherapy and Psychology.  To my surprise the connection between Psychology, Psychotherapy and Adventure Therapy was much more fluid than I had imagined.

For the purposes of my intellectual journey I began in 1892, which was the year that The American Psychological Association was founded along with the first camp for girls, Camp Arey in New York.  Secondly I discovered in 1918 a compulsory school began with the result of mass learning of individuals from diverse backgrounds.  Some students showed up to school in good health while some tended to learn slower than peers resulting in physical and mental examinations in schools.  Four years later (1922) Camp Ramapo in New York was founded with the specific purpose to work with delinquent and problem children in a summer camp setting.  Three years after Camp Ramapo (1925), marked the first year that school psychology training programs were offered at New York University at an undergraduate and graduate level.  Following these events other camps such as Camp Wawokiye in Ohio, founded in 1936, would follow Camp Ramapo in its footsteps. 

The 40’s marked a further progression in the AT, Psychology and Psychotherapy relationship.  In 1945 the Journal of Clinical Psychology was founded and a year later a foundation camp was started the Dallas Salesman Club Camp.  The Dallas Salesman Club Camp had the explicit goal of treating boys with emotional problems and serves as the current model for many year-around therapeutic camps in existence today.  Some of theses well-known organizations are the Eckerd Youth Alternatives, Three Springs, Wilderness Road Camping Association and the National Association of Therapeutic Wilderness Camps. 

In 1963 Lawrence Kolberg introduced the idea for the sequence of morality development.  These stages of self-focused, other focused and higher focused moralities provide a better understanding of how morality is held throughout one’s life.  In The same year the idea of observational learning was introduced in the development of personality. Preceding this event one of the most well known organizations Outward Bound was came to the United States in 1932 and focused on character development in youth.  These psychological developments no doubt had influence on the furthered development of Outward Bound practices.

The 70s and forward really proved to be a time in which youth with disabilities and behavioral issues came to be further recognized in the public eye.  In 1973, VisionQuest formed as one of he first private for-profit organizations that integrated the outdoors for rehabilitation of adjudicated and behaviorally challenged youth.  Two years later, The All Handicapped Children Act was passed requiring all public schools to serve students with a broad range of disabilities, which triggered an enormous growth in the number of school psychologist practitioners.   In the 1980s the Therapeutic Adventure Professional Group (TAPG) was committed to the development of adventure-based programming in a therapeutic setting.  In the 1980’s psychological developments were also occurring as well Howard Gardner introduced his theory of multiple intelligence (1983) and the American Psychological Society establishment in 1988. 

When going through and attempting to shift through the dates, there are broader and more direct lines that can be drawn between the concepts.  Moving forward it will be interesting to see how AT, psychology and psychotherapy influence one another.

Citations:  

Heffner Media Group, I. (2003, August 10) . History of Psychology (387 BC to Present). Retrieved from http://allpsych.com/timeline.html

New York Association of School Psychologists (1990) . History of School Psychology Timeline [data file] . Retrieved from http://www.nyasp.org/pdf/sp_timeline.pdf

Gass, Michael A., Lee Gillis, and Keith C. Russell. (2012).  Adventure Therapy: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York: Routledge.