Wilderness Therapy
Wilderness groups will consist of overnight and weekend backpacking trips where individuals, couples, or families will enter into a physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual therapeutic experience.
Experiences in the field are used as connections to life and help identify deeply rooted themes, wounds, or relationship dynamics. Groups will have a developed program to help each individual grow in awareness, process, apply new insight, and achieve growth. Individuals will be able to log their gains through journaling and personal reflection along the way. At camp there will be more formal group processing to help bring out realizations in greater depth. Groups are for various levels of backpackers. Sessions will be conducted prior to going into the field to help get to know and prepare individuals for the practical and logistical aspects of wilderness groups. Follow up sessions will also be offered as needed to help solidify or continue care.
Biblical Perspective
In the Bible we see how God created the Earth and all things on it and called them “good.” Oftentimes creation is used to teach lessons through parables, metaphors to life, or are used to reflect the grand qualities of God. Wilderness groups help us to embrace some of these narratives first-hand. You may have read about “walking through the valley of the shadow of death,” but have you ever physically placed yourself in a position to understand on a new level what this means through a parallel process? Experiential wilderness therapy gives you an extra level of processing that can heighten or produce more impactful change in one’s life.
Wilderness Groups
Groups will be predominately determined by need and interest. Groups may be clinical or non-clinical in nature. Groups may be as follows:
Restore Group
Be still, reset, connect with God, set goals, learn healthy coping skills
Depression Groups
Process depression, explore underlying roots, form adaptive beliefs about self, establish behavioral routines
Unplugging Group
Understand and set better boundaries with technology use
Men's/Women's Groups
Find non-judgmental support, camaraderie, accountability, and sharpening as you relate to others with common issues
Grief Group
Process loss, give space for your own grief process, debunk myths about grief
Spiritual/Church Groups
Go on a spiritual walk, envelope yourself in scripture, prayer, and meditation without distraction
But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you;
or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.
Job 12: 7-10