Wilderness Therapy Programs Overview

Wilderness therapy programs are often confused with wilderness experience programs. They are extremely different in that wilderness therapy programs treat kids with a variety of behavioral problems, drug and alcohol abuse issues, violent behaviors, truancy, theft, and many more reasons.

Statistics show that most of the teens in these programs are boys between 13 and 15 years of age. However, there are wilderness therapy programs that take in girls and those of all different ages. There are many programs though that are specifically teen boys.

Most wilderness therapy programs offer the same process for treatment. More often than not there is the first phase of getting all of the boys clean of drugs and alcohol physically. Most have staff that are trained to deal with withdrawals and other detoxification issues that may arise.

The second phase is a personal accountability as well as social accountability phase. Generally speaking there will be team building activities where the teens are forced to work together as a group to succeed. During this phase it is crucial to let natural consequences fall into place. If a teen decides not to do a necessary step they may have natural consequences to endure. For instance, if they are in charge of trash items after mealtime and neglect to do their job they may have to deal with wild animals coming into camp. Not only will this scare them but they will take a bit of heat from their peers. This is good in that it helps them realize that most things are not just about them but their choices affect those around them.

In the third phase the teens are taught how to implement what they learned at home and learn coping skills to keep from the temptation of drugs and alcohol use and other at risk behaviors. Some wilderness therapy programs are only three weeks and for those with ongoing or long term addiction problems or long term behavior problems this may not be long enough for them to really learn all that they need to learn for re-entering their home life and social circle at home. All wilderness therapy time frames are different.

These programs are becoming recognized as a great alternative to traditional mental health treatment facilities and they are also talked up because most are much more affordable. It is nice that there are options for family. It is hard to find hard data concerning wilderness therapy programs because they are still quite new and only a limited number of teens get the experience. At last official count there were less than 40 wilderness therapy programs in the United States.

-teenhelp.com