The Out­door Men­tal He­alth In­ter­ven­ti­ons Mo­del: A UK state­ment of good prac­ti­ce in ad­ven­ture the­ra­py

This pa­pers sum­ma­ries the de­ve­lo­p­ment of a state­ment of good prac­ti­ce for out­door and ad­ven­ture the­ra­py, and out­door men­tal he­alth in­ter­ven­ti­ons de­ve­lo­ped in the UK. It pro­vi­des a brief over­view of the ra­tio­na­le for its de­ve­lo­p­ment, along with an in­tro­duc­tion to how the Out­door Men­tal He­alth In­ter­ven­ti­ons Mo­del of­fers a frame­work for this state­ment. The key com­pon­ents of this in­ter­ven­ti­ons mo­del are dis­cus­sed, in­clu­ding ‘th­ree zo­nes’ of dif­fe­rent prac­ti­ces that the­ra­peu­tic out­door and ad­ven­ture prac­ti­ces can be ap­proa­ched from: 1) out­door en­ga­ge­ment; 2) the­ra­peu­tic enhance­ment; or 3) in­te­gra­ted out­door the­ra­py. It also rai­ses ques­ti­ons about the le­vels of com­pe­ten­ci­es from out­door and psy­cho­the­ra­peu­tic per­spec­ti­ves across each of the­se zo­nes of prac­ti­ces. Over­all, this rai­ses im­portant ques­ti­ons about cur­rent ethi­cal prac­ti­ces and fu­ture di­rec­tions in ethi­cal gui­dance for out­door and ad­ven­ture the­ra­pies both in the UK and in­ter­na­tio­nal­ly.