Wilderness As Therapy

Outward Bound-type programs have gained increasing recognition in the United States, usually appealing to middle and upper-class youth interested in challenging opportunities to develop self-confidence. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, outdoor survival programs were experimented with by Larry Dean Olsen, Larry Wells, and Doug Nelson, to name a few early leaders, which was found to be effective with young people with emotional and behavior problems. There are at least 10 quality programs running currently which use outdoor survival in working with these young people with problems, and more being developed all the time.

Copyright © 1991, Woodbury Reports, Inc. (This article may be reproduced without prior approval if the copyright notice and proper publication and author attribution accompanies the copy.)