How Wilderness Works
Wilderness and Adventure Therapy provides our clients with an opportunity to overcome internal and personal issues in a safe, supportive environment.
Our clients realize through these activities that they have the power to turn "I can't" into "I can”. They can climb that mountain. They can build a fire from scratch. Our clients learn that they can accomplish much more than they ever dreamed they could, improving their confidence in the process.
By removing young adults from the distractions found in everyday life, adventure and wilderness therapy allows clients to focus on improving their behavior and overall mental health. Gone are the negative influences that may be affecting behaviors. Instead, you have experiential learning and mental healing through exciting activities like mountaineering, and bouldering.Take a step outside your comfort zone and build translatable skills such as leadership, teamwork, and accountability. In nature, you have the time to mull over past actions and make goals for a successful future.
Experiential Learning
Experiential learning is an engaged learning process whereby students learn by doing and by reflecting on the experience. We at PulsaR incorporate this into everything we do. One could ask how you could possibly learn something from an activity such as rock climbing. In order to rock climb you need to pre-plan, make sure you are prepared for the task at hand, check your equipment for safety, and ensure you have a good support system to help you out. How is that so different from project management? Once on the rocks you have to plan out your every move, preparing to change your plan and execute a new direction if something doesn’t work the way you planned.
This is a huge soft skill that can trigger insecurity for many people. Having to make on the spot decisions can cause some individuals tol panic and experience a block. But with practice comes progress. Students of PulsaR are helped through this block and as they gain experience are able to make these transitions on their own, taking that sense of self-assurance into all aspects of their lives.
Adventure Therapy
- Utilizes active (kinesthetic) experiential methodology to engage clients and establish an identical or parallel process between the client’s life experience and their therapeutic experience.
- Focuses on therapeutic goals, including the cognitive, behavioral, affective, physical and spiritual facets of the person. This differentiates adventure therapy from uses of adventure for recreational, education, or physical health purposes.
- Involves a dynamic therapist-client relationship enhanced through the shared experience and the active involvement of the client in the creation and maintenance of an effective therapeutic environment, such as goal setting, personal decision-making, and achieving outcomes.
- Includes the constant support of trained, first aid and wilderness certified staff members who make sure all activities are performed safely and properly.
- Incorporates a dynamic use of the environment and often the role of nature. This may include exposure to unique environments or environments with adaptive dissonance for the client.
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Base Camp
Our program is not always on the move, we do have a base camp where we start each week. Days at our Base Camp are filled with group therapy sessions, individual therapy, yoga, mindfulness practices, and general camp maintenance. Clients typically wake up at 8 AM, and wrap up the day between 8 or 9 PM. The various activities are spread throughout the day depending on the needs of the group or an individual. We provide yurts or geodesic domes as a home base for our clients where there are cots and cooking centers.
While at Base Camp our emerging adults get to participate in our Equine Assisted Therapy programming weekly, as well as professionally led yoga instruction, and various group initiatives.
Laundry, showers, food re-rationing, and preparation for the weekend’s activities also happen during the time at our Base Camp, all in preparation for another exciting adventure.