Defines emotional crises in an adventure education context. Discusses crisis intervention from a mental-health perspective and presents nonviolent intervention techniques for anxiety, disruptive behavior, and harmful behavior. Describes two techniques--critical incident stress debriefing and traumatic stress defusing--aimed at managing traumatic…

Journal entries, reflections, and interviews from a phenomenological study indicate the benefits experienced by 70 British youth participating in a six-week Greenland expedition. Themes emerging from the data include reflection on values, life and career plans, friendships and relationships, connectedness to self and society, environmental…

Hierarchical linear modeling (HIM) is an approach used in data analysis to better understand how program outcomes are affected by the "nested" nature of data collected in many studies. An outcome can be considered variables such as an individual's self-efficacy, social skills, or more targeted outcomes such as demonstrated reading and mathematical…

This study examined the long-term effects of participation in a half-day, low-element challenge course on the group functioning of members of college student organizations. Seventy-six participants completed measures of group cohesion, group effectiveness, and individual effectiveness within the group at four points in time: (a) one week prior to…

Adventure-based therapy has grown in both scope and popularity. These groups are frequently utilized in the treatment of adolescents with behavioral or substance abuse issues. Less evident is the use of this modality with other populations. Described here is a personal account of the author's participation in a wilderness-based group for women.…

A study was conducted to determine whether long-term residential therapeutic wilderness programming best serves males or females. The Hope Center Wilderness Programs in east Texas use a reality therapy-based peer group culture. Forty emotionally disturbed and juvenile delinquent youths were surveyed, 20 of each gender. On an 11-item questionnaire,…

This paper outlines a conceptual framework for understanding individual development as it relates to the larger issue of intercultural competence and prejudice reduction. A hierarchical model of the multidimensional self-concept is presented in which self-concept encompasses academic, physical, social, and cultural identities. The essence of the…

Outdoor activities in residential programs aim to promote personal growth and to develop a healthy personality in troubled youth for whom other interventions have been unsuccessful. In the Netherlands, experiential outdoor programs consist of activities such as mountain climbing and rapelling, flat and white water canoeing, biking, sailing,…

This book presents group activities that use metaphors to enhance learning for participants in adventure-based programs. The first chapter provides an overview of approaches to facilitating adventure experiences, including letting the experience speak for itself, speaking for the experience, debriefing the experience, directly frontloading the…

This report presents data collected during 1989-90 for the Adventure Program Incident Reporting Project, a joint project between the Wilderness Risk Managers Committee and the Association for Experiential Education. The project provides a means to educate interested parties about the risk management implications of different adventure activities,…

The Rank Foundation's director of youth projects for northern England, Scotland, and Northern Ireland presents personal views on at-risk youth and ways that adventure-based interventions can meet their needs. Young people today suffer from the constant bombardment of advertising campaigns promoting material consumerism as the criterion for…

This paper traces the history of outdoor programming beginning with the influence of western expansionism and the settling of the American frontier. The late 1800s brought about a change in the national attitude from an adversarial view of wilderness to a beneficial view. This was reflected by writers such as Henry David Thoreau and John Muir.…

This proceedings contains 16 papers on recreation and adventure programming, outdoor education, and outdoor leadership training. The papers are: (1) "Beyond Recreation: Our Classroom Is Wild America" (Barry Auskern); (2) "Outward Bound Leadership Model: An Exploratory Study of Leadership Variables" (Natalie L. Bartley); (3)…

Fourteen wilderness and adventure therapy programs in England, Scotland, the United States, and New Zealand were studied to explore critical issues of practice. In view of differences in terminology among countries, various terms and assumptions are defined at length: adventure therapy; wilderness therapy; wilderness-adventure therapy; the…

Many outdoor educators and adventure therapists share the belief that adventure experiences improve participant self-esteem. Recently, researchers have begun to question this widespread belief, suggesting that a mismatch between the level of physical or psychological risk and the level of client readiness may produce negative outcomes. A study of…