What is wilderness drug treatment therapy?
One of the newer and more innovative drug rehab programs is wilderness drug treatment therapy. Despite how new this therapy is, it is rapidly gaining in popularity especially among the teenage and young adult audiences. This is an adventure-based program that promotes outdoor activities and takes place in the great outdoors. These programs are widely available and can be found in the majority of the 50 US states.
There are two schools of thought involved in this therapy. One is the “outward bound” approach while the other promotes wilderness survival techniques. Regardless, both philosophies have the same goal, namely helping the client to improve their self-respect as well as their self-respect. Despite the popularity of wilderness drug treatment therapy among the younger audiences mentioned above, it is not exclusive to these groups as older individuals are getting involved in this as well.
Either way, wilderness drug treatment therapy teaches the client a variety of coping skills which will help them avoid potentially harmful situations when they return home to their communities. They will also learn how to avoid people and places from their past that were responsible for triggering their addictive behavior and causing them to use drugs again when they were trying to defeat their addictions on their own.
Factors that play a critical role in this therapy
Despite the fact that wilderness drug treatment therapy is used by families in order to modify a young person’s behavior, the aim of the therapy and the methods that are employed do not center completely on behavior modification. Many wilderness therapy programs avoid what they perceive to be contrived activities, contrived consequences, manipulations, and psychological games.
Conversely, many wilderness drug treatment programs do not employ coercion or force, confrontation, level or point systems, manipulations, and overt behavioral modification models or techniques. Instead, they stress open communication between clients and staff members, stress self assertiveness, and are extremely group-oriented. Additionally, there is no single standardized therapy model. This is due primarily to the fact that many wilderness therapies reflect different drug rehab programs.
Most wilderness drug treatment programs operate using the following principles:
- the presence of a group leader – usually a psychiatrist or therapist
- tasks that become increasingly more difficult as you progress through the program in order to challenge you
- teamwork activities for the purposes of working together
- the utilization of therapeutic processes such as reflection journals or self-evaluation journals
If you are interested in a wilderness drug treatment program for you or a loved one, please contact Treatment 4 Drugs, our drug addiction referral service so that we can locate an addiction treatment and recovery near you that offers this type of therapy.