Adventure Therapy - History

History

The use of adventure as a part of healing process can be traced back in history to many cultures including Native American, 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 lack of cooperation on the part of … built self-esteem, 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.