The Unique Benefits of Wilderness Therapy for Women

The psychological rewards of exploring the outdoors should be considered for women, particularly as an avenue for dismantling both personal and societal boundaries. Wilderness recreation as a whole is already shown to be empowering for women; many participants in such recreation report that this empowerment leads to important changes in their own personal lives (McNiel et al. 2012).

One important arena that provides space for women to explore these benefits is wilderness therapy. The roots of wilderness therapy lie in the Outward Bound program, which was established in 1942 to prepare British seamen for World War II (Powch, 1994). Wilderness training and rescue training were used to develop tenacity and compassion in participants. Modern wilderness or “adventure-based” therapies incorporate this same element of challenge in an outdoor setting; the role of the therapist is to facilitate a client’s engagement with the wilderness and to further combine physical activities with therapeutic techniques and even spiritual experiences (Powch, 1994). 

Wilderness therapy itself is comprised of several “mechanistic components” — that is, activities that are structured with a specific goal in mind (Powch, 1994) — that may be of special benefit to women. One primary mechanistic component of wilderness therapy is an activity that connects the participant to fear and “restructure(s) their automatic reactions to this emotion” (Powch, 1994, p. 15). Rock climbing — a sport which dangles participants at extreme heights and requires them to climb shear cliffs — provides a perfect method for exploring fear; it forces the participant to confront and move through often paralyzing “fight or flight” responses. By overriding experiences of fear, the climber gains confidence and learns to trust her body and other participants (i.e. their belay partners) in the process. 

This confrontation and restructuring of fear may be particularly profound for women, who are conditioned to live with a certain amount of fear — and lack of control over that fear — in their daily lives. In her wilderness-based work with trauma survivors, Powch (1994) contends that women are socialized early-on to be aware of and mistrustful of their environment and to guard their bodies closely. Wilderness therapies like rock climbing reaffirm a participant’s sense of power by allowing her to confront fear in a context where she has greater control over her own body and emotional response. This is particularly poignant when considering treatment for survivors of trauma and abuse, for whom fear is especially loaded. This may be one reason why many women-specific wilderness therapy programs focus on this population with great success. 

Mary McHugh, a rape survivor and co-founder of the Ending Violence Effectively program for survivors of assault and domestic abuse, shares her experience of working through fear beautifully: “I can do things even when I’m frightened. My body’s shaking, and I can still trust my body. It still works” (Obereigner, 1986). Climbing provides one powerful way for women — and practitioners of wilderness therapy or other adventure-based therapeutic programs — to explore the healing effects of claiming power in the face of fear. It is important to point out that the therapeutic benefits mentioned here are not only impactful for survivors of abuse; these therapeutic concepts are applicable to all people who live within the context of patriarchal societies.

• References:

  McNiel, J., Harris, D., & Fondren, K. (2012). Women and the wild: Gender socialization in wilderness recreation advertising. Gender Issues, 29(1–4), 39–55. https://doi-org.antioch.idm.oclc.org/10.1007/s12147-012-9111-1

  Obereigner, D. (1986). Wilderness therapy aids victims: Participants find they have to learn trust. The Coloradoan, p. B4. 

  Powch, I.G. (1994) Wilderness therapy: What makes it empowering for women?, Women & Therapy, 15(3-4), 11-27, doi:10.1300/J015v15n03_03