Why Wilderness?
A Brief Glimpse into how it Works.

Let us begin with a basic presupposition. The process of change creates fear and confusion because we feel out of control. If you wish to test the veracity of this statement, ask yourself how much fear and confusion you endured before seeking out an avenue for change? How much before entertaining the possibility of enrolling your son or daughter in Wilderness Therapy? Furthermore, now that you're considering the prospect of Wilderness Therapy, how much more fear and confusion are you currently enduring as you consider the reality of this change? The initial step into the Wilderness environment brings discomfort for parent and teenager alike. This is because we feel a loss of control. In Wilderness we use that discomfort and the innate desire to restore that comfort to create change. Confusion, even desperation precipitates the desire for change. This principle is as profound and simple as the reason why even a bunny rabbit hops out into the sunlight when cold, and back into the shade when too warm. This is a basic premise of how and why Wilderness works to facilitate change.

All behaviors have a positive intention if you look hard enough; this is a way of separating behavior from identity. For the bunny rabbit the intention is comfort. This is a second basic presupposition of Wilderness Therapy. Above, we noted that the process of change creates fear and confusion because we feel out of control. Control is understood to be one of the most fundamental positive intentions. Again, consider your motivation for looking for support outside the home, the local therapist office, the school system, etc...Perhaps it feels more like panic at times, but consider it as a healthy searching to re-establish control in your life and the life of your family. Now, for a moment, consider the possibility that the vast array of mind boggling, blood pressure raising behaviors your son or daughter have been engaging in as an attempt to find control in their lives as well.

Control in itself is neither positive nor negative. Certainly there is value to developing the wisdom to discern how much control is healthy to expect, but control itself is neutral. Reinhold Neibuhr said it best when he spoke, "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." The Wilderness process is about redeeming our students' sense of self and identity by differentiating who they are from what they do. It is about helping our students recognize, initially through a process largely driven by the desire to re-establish comfort and control, that their behaviors are merely destructive and misguided means to a common end. Moreover, it is about the realization that those destructive means can be replaced with new behaviors that will move them closer to control and comfort without destroying the relationships with those that love them most.