The Ad­ven­ture The­ra­py Tool­kit: En­ri­ching the The­ra­peu­tic Space

Gass, Gill­lis, & Rus­sel (2012) de­scri­be Ad­ven­ture The­ra­py as “the pre­scrip­ti­ve use of ad­ven­ture ex­pe­ri­en­ces pro­vi­ded by men­tal he­alth pro­fes­sio­nals, of­ten con­duc­ted in out­door set­tings that ki­nes­the­ti­cal­ly en­ga­ge cli­ents on a co­gni­ti­ve, af­fec­ti­ve and be­ha­vi­oral le­vel.” Th­roug­hout the work­shop, ac­ti­vi­ties were pro­vi­ded for prac­ti­tio­ners to in­te­gra­te in of­fice-ba­sed, com­mu­ni­ty-ba­sed, or wil­der­ness set­tings. They were sel­ec­ted for their abili­ty to ad­dress spe­ci­fic cli­ent cli­ni­cal out­co­mes, such as so­cial skills (Tu­cker, 2009), self-con­cept and per­cep­ti­on of com­pe­tence, group co­he­si­on (Nor­ton et al, 2014), nur­tu­ring per­so­nal growth, skill, and know­ledge de­ve­lo­p­ment, in­cre­asing co­ope­ra­ti­ve be­ha­vi­ors, re­la­ting to others, and re­sol­ve pro­blems or con­flicts (Garst & Ozier, 2015).