The Colorado Outward Bound School (COBS) provides successful adjunct programs for special populations undergoing therapy at the Adventure Home (Boulder, CO), the Juvenile Justice Program and the St. Luke's Hospital Alcoholism Recovery Unit (Denver, CO), and the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center Department of Psychiatry (Hanover, NH). The goals of the COBS therapeutic approach include increasing self-esteem, cooperation, compassion, and interdependence; resolving issues of locus of control; increasing a sense of responsibility for self and others; and learning the inherent value of risk taking. The COBS programs include three integral elements: a natural physical environment, a small social environment, and the challenges of coping with both the physical and social environments. The natural setting evokes and reinforces coping rather than defensive behaviors. The environment becomes the therapist because consequences are direct, immediate, and impartial. In small living and learning groups of 9-12, clients learn to communicate, cooperate, depend on, and trust each other in structured group discussions and in facing the common challenges of the outdoors. The challenges include natural living skills as well as frightening, risk-filled activities such as rock climbing, peak ascents, and rappelling. Successfully met challenges lead to self-confidence and a creative use of fear. (SB)