Pee­king In­si­de the Black Box of Out­door The­ra­pies: Buil­ding meta-theo­ry from rea­list syn­the­ses

This ar­tic­le de­linea­tes va­rious forms of out­door the­ra­pies by their fo­cus on per­cei­ved chall­enge and/or na­tu­re im­mersi­on and no­tes that the pro­fes­si­on suf­fers from con­fla­ting both sim­ply be­cau­se they oc­cur in the same place: out­side. It se­pa­ra­te­ly sum­ma­ri­zes the re­se­arch li­te­ra­tu­re for adventure/wilderness the­ra­py and for fo­res­t/e­co-the­ra­py. It iden­ti­fies a start­ing point for in­di­ca­ti­ons and con­tra­in­di­ca­ti­ons for out­door the­ra­py tre­at­ments by chall­enge and na­tu­re ori­en­ta­ti­ons. Sug­ges­ti­ons for po­ten­ti­al prac­ti­tio­ner ap­pli­ca­ti­ons and fu­ture re­se­arch di­rec­tions are made on the ba­sis of the­se sum­ma­ries.