Science & Research

Self-concept change has been proposed as a key driver of behavioral change through ad-venture therapy. Through exploratory moderator analysis we tried to identify process variables that influence the effect of adventure therapy on self-concept to contribute to a deeper understanding of why and when adventure therapy works. This meta-analysis in-cludes thirty studies that report effects of adventure therapy programs on three aspects of self-concept: locus of control, self-efficacy, and self-esteem. Short-term effect sizes of the impact of adventure therapy on self-concept were moderate. The revealed high het-erogeneity of effect sizes could not be explained by any of the examined moderating vari-ables. The follow-up effects confirmed a lasting self-concept change. Limitations and al-ternative explanations of the results are discussed. Future research needs to focus on psychological processes involved in adventure therapy and strive towards high methodo-logical quality.

The article describes the effects of systemic action-oriented group therapy in nature in the psychotherapeutic treatment of children and adolescents (n=66) with serious problems in their social behavior. These include violent behavior, mobbing experiences, threatened exclusion from school, social anxiety or difficulties in connecting with peers. Selected quantitative-empirical research results are presented. The central question of the study was, whether systemic-action-oriented group therapy a) changes the competence assessment as well as b) the psychic symptomatology and c) what are the connections between a changed competence assessment and a changed psychic symptomatology. An analogous competence assessment procedure was developed for this purpose. The psychic symptoms were measured with the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) and the Youth Self-Report (YSR) at three time-points.