When talk therapy and medication are not enough, wilderness adventure therapy can often provide an alternative and supplemental method to improve the mental health of young adults struggling with depression. The model of adventure therapy is a productive solution in helping young adults overcome these issues by incorporating a combination of adventure activities, community service, cultural immersion, in addition to talk therapy.
Wilderness Adventure Therapy: A Comprehensive Treatment Option for Depressed Young Adults
Furthermore, adventure therapy is a structured holistic model of treatment that addresses multiple facets of human development and pathology. Wilderness adventure therapy introduces young adults to the wilderness or outdoors “as the therapist” and “therapeutic activities” that they will be doing in the wilderness as part of their program. A study done by Christine Lynn Norton, PhD., found that wilderness adventure therapy helped to decrease prevalence and rates of depression and helped increase psychosocial development with an average improvement of -4.3 points on the Reynolds Adolescent Depression Scale (RADS-2), which is seen as a clinically meaningful level. Likewise there was an average improvement of 6.1 points on the Measures of Psychosocial Development (MPD), showing a large shift from low to normal levels of psychosocial development.
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