What is Wilderness and Nature-based Therapy?

I am a counsellor in Gillingham Dorset, situated near the borders of Dorset, Somerset and Wiltshire and I offer both general counselling services for individuals, relationship counselling, couples counselling and Life Coaching support as well as Wilderness Therapy and Nature-based Therapy in Dorset and North Wales. My style of working is fully adaptable to the field of Life, Business and Executive Coaching and compatible with the coaching qualification that I hold.

My testimonials page, contains a number of client reflections on their wilderness therapy experiences and are published with the permission of the contributors.

Clients often ask me about what Wilderness Therapy is, and how and why I work in this way. In an attempt to provide answers to these questions, I’m publishing the transcript of a recent interview I had with Martin Jordan, who is Senior Lecturer, Counselling and Psychotherapy at The School of Social Science, University of Brighton. Martin is currently undertaking a detailed research programme into the emerging field of Wilderness Therapy.

Martin – The first question then is to ask you about
your own therapeutic relationship with the natural environment……. What you find
therapeutic about it…….What in your experience would you say it is?

Geoff – That is a really pertinent question because I believe
that our passion and motivation to do this work is largely rooted in our prior experiences
of, and interactions with, nature.

My own therapeutic experience of the outdoor environment
goes back to when I was 16, although I didn’t recognize it as a therapeutic
experience then. I was an adolescent starting to climb mountains and journey to
the great outdoors; that was the portal for me to get out of the house as a
youngster. By doing this, I didn’t go too heavily down the alcohol route and
completely avoided the drug route as a youngster, this being a route taken by
many young people.

I now realize that what I was doing, at a much deeper
level, was undertaking what I now know to be a form of Rites of Passage, from
youth to manhood.

Martin – Was it a way of coping with family dynamics in
a way?

Geoff – Yes, yes absolutely. I was the youngest of
three children and the circumstances and dynamics of my childhood was that
there was no significant male role model throughout my early life. I found good
role models in the people who inspired, nurtured and kept me safe within the
outdoors environment.

And I think this is important.  My story is quite pertinent to the process
really – there was no natural role model for me.  I was a little bit out on the outside, trying
to find my place in life, I needed to believe that I had a right to be here and
to stand on the earth beneath my feet. 

And I believe that I addressed that need through the
sense of adventure that the outdoors offered, building up my physical and
emotional strength by testing myself and being supported by really good role
models.

Martin – So was it about men – men in the outdoors – that
kind of role model then – and climbing?

Geoff – Yes, it was all about role models, people who
provided support and challenge. That is what we do as therapists, to some
degree – we become role models, even those people who aren’t therapists can
become good role models. They are there out there in outdoor education, and
they really help youth development.

Martin – So obviously you have a relationship to the
mountains and to climbing.  What would
say is therapeutic about that for you?  

Geoff – Well I think that for many years what was
therapeutic for me was that it was certainly a good form of stress relief.  It was certainly a good way to escape the work stress
associated with a career in banking.

As I trod a path of personal development, preparing
myself for a new vocational career as a therapist, I came to realize that I went
climbing as a coping mechanism, planning and undertaking trips was a way of
maintaining my sanity whilst I tried to survive in an environment which was
increasingly unfulfilling and dishonouring of my values.

There was a lot of escapism. I’d book up a big trip
somewhere, so that I’d have something to look forward to and so that I could
distance myself from the daily mayhem and things that I didn’t like.

Martin – Yes. So it is a bit of …

Geoff- Peace!

Geoff- From about the age of 45, before I even made
significant career and life changes, I gradually gained a sense that things
were going to change, that it was an imperative, and that my time was coming.

And I think one of the things that started to happen to
me, and has certainly accelerated now, was coming to realize that as I went
into the outdoors and I did all this traveling across Nepal, South America and
goodness knows where else, it was almost as though I was running away from
something.

In running away across the world, I’d find myself sitting
in places like Buddhist Monasteries half way up a mountain in Nepal, where I
experienced peace,  when in fact what I
really needed was peace inside myself – internal equilibrium rather than
external balancing factors.

Martin -Yes.  And
in one sense the traveling ……because that is one of the dangers I think of
taking people outside: is that you are moving them away from an ability to sit
with somebody.  And I am not saying that
is in every case but that is one of the dangers I think.

Geoff – That is right; I think it is a big danger.  I once heard or read that if you look at it
in purist terms of going to somewhere really remote (be it the Western Isles of
Scotland or be it Alaska etc.) then it can become elitist and the risk is that
it becomes like a one night stand with nature.

People can end up having an overwhelming experience
which they can’t possibly recreate unless they are an outdoor adventurer
anyway.  And if they were they probably
wouldn’t be on a therapeutic experience of that nature!

Martin – I think that I agree with you.

Geoff – And so I have quite a strong belief that it is
about the sort of inner wilderness that we go into in life and in therapy.

Martin – So the inner wilderness.

Geoff – Inner wilderness, yes: the sort of lost or unknown
territory inside which is reflected outside, in the natural world, in which
core human emotions of anger, joy, sadness, and fear – long recognised as being the building blocks of emotional literacy can all be mirrored in
the topography, geography, weather, flora and fauna.

Martin – And so to some sense…. yeah – the going
outdoors is a way to access that.

Geoff – Yep.

Martin – And the kind of inner world – mirrors the outer
world…

Geoff – Yes, I feel quite strongly about that. We all
get used to the ‘comfort zone’ of our usual lives but going outdoors has the
potential to catapult us, practitioners and clients, to the edge of our comfort
zone and beyond.

I can offer a really good example of this from my own experience
of working with groups.

The first time I ran a large group in North Wales;
there were 12 psychotherapists and/or trainee psychotherapists from the Irish
Republic. I was commissioned by a colleague to lead the programme. Because it
was the first time I was running a trip that big, I contracted with my usual climbing
buddy, to help out as a bit of a guide and to help make sure people had got all
their gear right and together.  The
purpose was also to help move them safely around wherever we were going. 

We were working in the hills, valleys and woods etc.
and John, because he is a bit more of a ‘go-getter’ climber and not too long
ago a full time teacher, kept saying to me things like – ‘well, ok, so what is
the planned itinerary’ – and we talked about it. It was a fluid plan, designed
to give flexibility for me to respond to whatever manifested during the week.
He said to me – “well what route are we going to take them on?  What mountains do you want to go up then?” –
I asked him to explain what he meant.

He explained that they had paid all good money and they
had come all this way, surely they want to go to the top of Snowdon, or
something else? 

I said to him… “John you are missing the point.  It is the mountains within that they have
come to climb.  So we will take them up
to the inhospitable foothills of the mountains, to the remote woodland areas
there and as far as they are concerned they will have gone up ‘their mountain’.  They are not particularly fit, some of them smoke
heavily, and some are overweight and are not active, sporting wise.  So it is really important to maintain the
integrity of the group and the respect of the individual, by making sure that
people aren’t overstressed physically or marginalized from the group if they
feel unable to undertake a physical activity. We must not inadvertently set up
a situation where we know that people will fail. That is real skill and judgment
which we must show as facilitators and guides.

Martin – No I think you are right.  I do think you are right… that stuff is an
added dimension to it all isn’t it, and it is just something that you would
never get indoors really.         

Geoff – Yes, they can have deep, deep experiences; I’ve
witnessed this with clients when working within a short distance of the base I
use in North Wales and even in woodland which is in close proximity to a
client’s home. The ecological imperative is to bring nature to our own doorstep
whilst contemporaneously aiming to use nature to address the therapeutic needs
of the client through the way our relationship with the earth often mirrors our
relationship with ourselves. Nature adapts to the ever changing environment and
it finds many ways to survive and grow. Take ivy, for example, many people
believe that it chokes and kills trees but you just can’t stop it growing and
it supports a multitude of life forms, insects and birds etc. We can all learn
much from the much maligned ivy.

When I work on a remote basis and a whole day, for
example, is spent exploring woodland, clients may become totally disorientated
as to where they are and this can cause suppressed emotions to surface. My
experience of the work has shown me how wilderness therapy can go straight to
the heart of what is happening and clear the way for rapid transformation. It
is up to me, as the practitioner, to keep them safe at both a psychological and
physical level.

Martin – And so they are close to familiarity and
safety but can feel so far away. I know, yes the perception of the outdoors
world is very different for different people, based on their experience.

Geoff – Yes, and working outdoors has the capacity to
move people out of their comfort zones, be they physical or emotional……where
the work needs to be done.

Martin – Can you say a bit about what influenced your
decision to take clients outside?  So
obviously you are trained and qualified as an integrative counsellor, and now
trained and qualified as a counsellor in an outdoor context. Why did you do it
– what influenced your decision to take people outside?

Geoff – My experience of core counselling training is
held in balance; a balance between high regard and absolute frustration. As a
person who had already climbed many of ‘life’s mountains’, so to speak, I
largely knew what ‘my stuff’ was and could contain it in an appropriate way,
without it gridlocking my life. This caused tension where many of my peers, in
training, were more in the foothills of life so to speak. Gender and consequent
transference issues were at work also, given that I was usually the only man in
an otherwise all female environment.

Coupled with this, was the fact that I wasn’t coming
from what the therapy world would call a ‘core profession’, like teaching,
nursing, social work etc. I was coming from a career in banking and that was
subliminally viewed as being incongruent, to elements of the therapeutic
‘establishment’.

Martin – (laughs…….both laugh!)

Geoff – And I really struggled with this. I was really
struggling to find where I might belong in the therapy profession at a time
when I was feeling as marginalized as I had been in my upbringing and as
seemingly out of place, as I was increasingly feeling, in my banking career.

There was a real tension between my head and my heart.

In my heart it felt that I was where I wanted to be,
because I have years of life and other experience and I knew that there had to
be a better way for people to interact and understand one another, and make
good decisions.  So I was coming at it,
from a position of exploration, not from a position of particular weakness if
you know what I mean. In my head, I couldn’t figure out a way through the
confusion……I couldn’t see a way through the hill fog.

So I didn’t know where I belonged.  And some of my co students were rolling around
on the floor wanting to murder their dads and their husbands and stuff like
that.  And I was thinking – jeepers I
don’t know how long I can cope with this. 

Martin – Oh right

Geoff – And then I read an article about working
therapeutically outdoors, it was published a professional journal. It struck a
chord with me, I hooked up with the author and that led me to specialist
training in Wilderness Therapy. The rest, as they say, is history.

Martin – Was that in the BACP Journal, that one?

Geoff – Yep…….. Yep, that’s the one; I still have a
copy of it somewhere. I read it and I was interested in it because I thought –
‘hey this is really interesting’ – and it was one of those mystical symbiotic
moments when you think – ‘hang on’ – I have been climbing up in the UK and across
the world, I understand the beauty of the mountains, I know what they can give
and I am certainly aware of what they can take away if you get it wrong’, you
know, in terms of the ability to damage. 
And the whole concept of a sense of purpose and reason for life for me started
to come though. It was as if there was a pathway ahead which was beckoning me
on.

It offered me the opportunity to maybe weave the
threads of my life experiences into a blanket – that made sense of my life …
like having businesses experience … life experience…. The commercial career and
wanting to be a therapist and add something which was a little bit
different.  And the outdoor stuff was
actually it – if there was a way to wrap it all together into something that
was really meaningful for me.        

And having spent years of living my life in a non-meaningful
way I had the chance to start to rewrite the story of my life, thereby breaking
the script my mother gave me. When I was about to leave school, I wanted to join
the army and drive tanks and be a warrior, but Mum said “well – you were never
a strong boy Geoffrey but you are, you know, good with your head you should go
into a bank – so what did I do?  I went
into banking!

Martin – Mmm OK.

Geoff – And I hated it for years you know.  So to do meaningful things is really important
to me, and I just felt this was something to look at to see … to see if I could
wrap all this together in a way that was meaningful to me – in some sort of package
where I could make that available to clients, then wouldn’t that be a fantastic
thing.

Martin – Yeah.  I
read that article, it is interesting, and the author was a sort of catalyst for
lots of people, wasn’t he.

Geoff – Yes. 
Absolutely, he was in many ways.

Martin – How did your core integrative training
translate into the outdoors?  And
obviously I am aware of the training course you attended.  

Geoff – Well I think that of the many gifts I found in
training I probably value most the gifts of the freedom to find my creativity –
and secondly the permission and freedom to play.

Martin – Right

Geoff – We learned to work creatively with miniatures,
with movement, with drawings and allsorts. 
We worked a lot with metaphors and stories, and some psycho-synthesis
practices. Working with these modalities, we would often work with guided
visualizations.

I remember feeling very frustrated about one where we
would journey up a mountain and ‘imagine there was somebody walking with you’.  And I was thinking – ‘I do this’ – you know –
‘I do this now!’ – I literally take people up mountains! I reflected on how
clients often say things like “life feels like an uphill struggle” and, knowing
how powerful it can be to work with metaphors, I played with the concept of how
powerful it would be to bring this type of metaphor outdoors and literally
invite the client to get on that uphill slope where we could work with both the
physical and emotional sensations in a very real way.

And I thought “I could adapt much of what I already do
and know and take it outdoors, so that the metaphors come to life, becoming
real solid experiences.

Martin – Tell me more….

Geoff – And I could give you a really good example of
that transfer.  When I did my coaching
course, there was a great but simple exercise that you could do with clients,
which they call ‘the flow of the river of life.’  You draw a circle representing a cross
section of a water pipe for example … with water flowing through it so that it
has got a nice smooth bore and it is flowing evenly.  And then you draw a couple of blocks or obstacles
in it, and you draw in blockages to symbolize an obstruction in the flow of the
water.    

And the idea of that is that you then say to the person
– what are the blocks that are stopping the smooth flow of your life?

Now, for me, that readily transposes from a coaching
technique to a therapeutic experience, where you can draw out the metaphor and
play around with it.  What better way to
do this than to stand somebody in a stream in the outdoors?  And I say “look at that smooth running stream
there”, and the client will say how beautiful it looks and how wonderful the
place is. I then ask them to think about what is impeding the smooth flow of
their life.  And they usually say that
they aren’t sure, so I ask them to pick up a stone that kind of represents
something.  And they start putting stones
in to the river to see how it disturbs the flow and this usually prompts emotional
engagement, identifiable within a Gestalt context, with whatever issues are
around for them. The currents and eddies that are created bring shape and form
to their dilemmas.

Martin – Right

Geoff – And then you get an emotional reaction to that,
when you ask about what would it take to shift that stone.

Martin – So you realized that you could use the
outdoors and nature in a way – rather than kind of visualizing – you could
actually use it for real metaphors, for people to step in to and be creative
and play with.

Geoff – Yes, you get some deep emotional engagement; which
is what is needed for many people, because we live our lives in our heads if we
are not careful.

Martin – How did the kind of theory that you were being
exposed to in counselling training, how did that translate into the outdoors or
not, as sort of ideas?

Geoff – Yes. I don’t necessarily take a great academic
sort of technical approach to it this, because it is easy to get lost in the
academia rather than the working with people as human beings.

However, the way I work as a humanistic, integrative
practitioner is rooted in Person Centred Therapy, which places great importance
on the therapeutic relationship and Gestalt, which recognizes the importance of
the client’s experience as being paramount with the therapist as witness and
Transactional Analysis, which I find gives a sound analytical framework through
which clients can make sense of their world, past and present. I also love the
Jungian approach to play and our relationship to the natural world and its
seasons and cycles – we are so out of touch with the earth upon which we walk
and rely so much upon.

And it is the teachings and the cycles of the earth
that have served us well over thousands of years, and we have forgotten it.

I have found great inspiration for these ways of
working in the outdoors and been privileged to be a small part of the great
transformations that my clients have achieved in their lives.

Martin – It is a bit like that is the argument of eco-psychology
text, isn’t it really?

Geoff – Yes, on the edge of that it is a reasonably
happy camp for me, but maybe I’m not yet ready to give up my electric light and
car! (Laughing). 

Martin – In terms of taking risks in the outdoors, what
are your views?

Geoff – As therapists we are in the business of
managing risk, emotional and psychological risk. In the outdoors we have also
to consider and manage physical risks. I believe that there is a huge capacity
for abusive relationships to form when working in the outdoors.

Martin – In what way – say more about that.

Geoff – Risk of the practitioner ‘getting off’ on
proving themselves to be so much better than everybody else, by scaring the
pants off them – that is bad practice.

Martin – So in a way, and say taking for example the
Crib Goch ridge on Snowdon, which would be pretty lethal, to take an
inexperienced or even a moderately experienced person … myself included…… I
wouldn’t fancy going up Crib Goch and along that ridge really, because that
would scare the pants off me.

Geoff – Yes that is right.  In the comments that you made about when you
did your course – about the people who are involved in it and their attitude to
life, that is exactly what I mean about – it has got to feel right for the
practitioner and we have got to recognize and respect our own limitations.

Martin – I agree with you.  Yes, I would much rather be in a terrain
where I know the routes, I know how to get off things. I wouldn’t take people
on any dangerous scrambles, or anything like that it; I would have to be within
my comfort zone.

Geoff – That is right, and in the in the therapy world,
I say – ‘what is different?’

Martin – No you are right.  It is an interesting …

Geoff – Don’t exceed your experience, don’t exceed –
you know – your qualifications.  Don’t do
it, it is not worth it. When working with clients in the outdoors, my rule of
thumb is to stay within the bottom quartile of my own personal physical comfort
zone so I know that I can keep my clients safe as much as is reasonable
possible.

Martin – No, I know, and that leads me into my next
point actually.  How would you say some
of the practices that you use of counselling and psychotherapy translate?   You
have talked about, in terms of ethics and safe practice.  How does that stuff kind of shift around
things like confidentiality in the outdoors, and things like holding therapies?

Geoff – Before I answer that, and I will probably ask
you if you don’t mind to repeat the question because there was something else
that I wanted to say – just picking up on something that one of our colleagues
said, on the Wilderness experience week that she did; where there were people
who were brought along to sit in tents and have an experience. 

The big risk is that if you do that and you don’t know
the people who are coming, is that the whole week can become a lesson in daily
functioning and survival, and you may get nothing out of it other than you
survived.

Martin – Yeah. 
And that in a way is not therapeutic – well potentially not anyway.

Geoff – And again it is the danger, because if we
become so desperate to pursue a fantastic dream about wilderness therapy, that
it become abusive because we’ll take anyone, to make the course work. I’ve been
on courses where this has happened and it’s simply not worth the trouble it can
cause.

Martin – So in some sense the screening of people prior
to a kind of outdoor experience … especially that sort of experience.

Geoff – Yes, and because it is therapeutically ‘edgy’.
If there is unsafe practice from a therapeutic or physical point of view – it
is dangerous.

Martin – OK that is interesting.

Geoff – But of course we don’t say much collectively as
therapists because we are all being nice to one another but repeat the point
that keeping it safe, for me,  means
holding both the emotional and physical aspects in an appropriate way. Outdoors
therapy is not the time for me to test my physical limitations, it is about me
being aware of the clients’ limitations and inviting them to the edge of those
limits. If they get there, I may invite them to put a toe over the edge and
come back and do some more later.

Martin – Yeah, I think that is … you know, because I do
find the responsibility of it all quite stressful when I am taking groups out,
on my own or with colleagues.

And even in the more remote areas like up in the Rhinnogs,
when we did it, we kept to the paths and we didn’t go up very high. But even
just camping in tents that didn’t seem as though they were up to the weather,
and it cutting it up a bit rough with the wind, and I remember going to bed on
Thursday night and a couple of people turned up for the start of the workshop
on Friday morning and the wind was blowing and I was weighing the tent pegs
down with stones.  And I sat there
thinking “Christ, are they going to survive the night?”  And I don’t know whether I quite liked this
level of responsibility that we have got really.

Geoff – Yep, yep, and as a practitioner, once we start to
get those fears – that’s going to get in the way.

Martin – Well that is it and as I have experienced, and
we have talked about this, the therapist has to manage their own anxiety in
some of these terrains, so you have to be quite within your comfort zone to
manage your own levels of anxiety don’t you? 
You have to be comfortable enough to carry the anxiety of the
group.  Otherwise all the anxiety just
gets too much.

Geoff – That’s right. 
And I think the great sadness of what has happened to some of our
mentors is that they couldn’t manage the tension between their personal dream
and professional responsibility.

Martin – I can see that this is important for you.

Geoff – I am not saying what I am saying from a
critical point of view, I am sad for the people who lost their way and got it
wrong. However, I’ve learned a great deal about how not to do things and I’m
grateful for that.

Geoff – So shall we go back to that question?  I will ask you to repeat it if you will
Martin.

Martin – It is issues around confidentiality: and
holding a kind of frame a therapeutic frame if you like.  So normally you would do 50 minutes inside a
room with closed doors; or you would do a day workshop, again with closed
doors.  And you have got a
confidentiality contract and you can particular therapeutic spaces set up and
share and reflect in.   How does that all
shift when you move into the outdoors? 
How do you carry some of that through and how does that become
challenging?

Geoff – Some of the group work that I have done has
been based in North Wales. I have tended to work with a colleague who has a
stream of interested clients, but who is not a wilderness therapist. Together
we screen the applicants for suitability, motivation and expectations and
develop a flexible programme to suit the identified aims and objectives.

Small stand-alone groups that I have worked with are
considered in the same way.

If I work with an individual client on a one-to-one basis
out of doors, I wouldn’t just engage immediately with somebody outdoors who
said to me – ‘I would like some therapy I understand you do outdoors mixed
space work and that is what I would like to do’ – and can we meet as so-and-so
woods next week. I wouldn’t do it.

I would want to have two or three sessions indoors, go
through the contract setting, to make sure they are happy to work with me and that
I am happy to work with them.  And I get
some kind of sense of what benefit it would be to them.

Martin – You would establish a thorough kind of
assessment then?

Geoff – Yes, I would then have some ideas on where to
take them and what kind of experience to set up. I would know what it is that
they want to work at. 

I can give a good example of this. I was working
indoors with an established client and she was facing the window and I was
aware that she sort of transfixed on something out of the window.  I drew attention to the fact that her
attention had gone outside the room and what was happening in that moment. She
said that she was looking at that tree outside. 
I enquired about the tree and she said was thinking about the bad
relationship she’d had with her adopted father, and how that got better in later
years and they’d planted trees the year he died. 

This lady had experienced a much marginalized life,
much of which had been self-inflicted.  Seeing
that she was connecting deeply with the tree I pointed out that trees don’t
judge people; they afford shelter from the storm or hot sun to anyone who seeks
it…they don’t say “we don’t want your sort here!”

This potentially superficial loss of attention on her
part led to us agreeing to work outdoors, in the local woodland. Our starting
point was a sound therapeutic relationship and an agreement to explore her
life’s story to find context and meaning within an outdoor setting.

We would have a session outdoors, a longer session, and
then a session the next week indoors to attend to any issues that arose from
the outdoors work.

Martin – Oh right that is interesting.

Geoff – concerning confidentiality and ethical issues,
I explored these matters at length with my supervisor and we concluded that it
all comes down to the contract that is formed, how this defines what is okay
and what is not okay, for the client and therapist alike. I soon found that the
most appropriate way to commence a session was to meet the client at a
predetermined place.

Around the practicalities of confidentiality, because
we can get hung about that, the question arises, “is it absolutely confidential
in the room and that nobody knows what is going on?”  If you get the same client walking up the
street to your house or to your office every week, and they can be seen going
in anyway, then some leakage of absolute confidentiality is possible. 

And the other thing that we agreed was, normally my dog
Maisie comes along when I do this work; we agreed and contracted that if we
were stood somewhere off the path and people walked by, we would just either be
silent or we would talk about something else or we’d just walk off with the dog.  The client was happy with that and it worked
well.

Martin – I can see you managed …OK but it was all
contracted.

Geoff- And it was up to the client to agree, but it was
all by contract. If what was possible wasn’t acceptable to the client, then the
work wouldn’t have been undertaken and we’d have stayed in an indoors
environment.

Martin – Yes, I think that is interesting. So in
relation to kind of weather and issues of being outdoors and that all became
part of the contract: what you would do if it rains or if the weather is awful?

Geoff – (laughs) “We are engaging with nature on
nature’s terms” is what I say.  I advise
the clients to come prepared for whatever weather is likely to manifest, to
bring a hot drink and something to eat etc. I bring along some spare
waterproofs etc. but don’t tell them that. If they forget things or come
unprepared there is a wealth of material that can be worked with around
awareness and self-care etc. We would go whatever the weather, as long as the
client turns up, but with overriding considerations about the client being ‘up
for it’ (making autonomous decisions in Person Centred terminology) and my
previous comments about keeping the physical aspects of the work in the bottom
quartile of my own personal comfort zone.

On the matter of comfort zones, it is vital for the
outdoors therapist to be attuned to the adequacy of the protective clothing and
gear that the client has. For example, if I turn up in top notch Gore-Tex
anorak and over trousers and my client has old inadequate gear, not only will
they suffer the physical consequences way ahead of me but, at a psychological
level, it might foster or affirm in them a sense of You’re Okay, I’m not Okay,
using Transactional Analysis terminology and principles.

Martin – That is interesting, I am quite
intrigued.  And you do it kind of
experientially for the two hours. 
Obviously there will be some talking and reflecting within that, but you
would designate a space the next week to really kind of process it in a deeper
way then – was that the kind of rationale for how you had set it up?

Geoff – Yep.

Martin – Why was that? 
Because you didn’t feel that there was enough space in the outdoors?

Geoff – It’s about understanding how process works.
Sometimes we recognize ‘ah-hah’ moments in our work and sometimes change and
learning is more evolutionary than revolutionary.

I have found that working on a sessional basis with a
client requires a different approach to that which works on a longer, say
5-day, programme. In the longer term engagement the practitioner can observe
and explore what is happening more easily but this is not so easy during a
2-hour session, for example, where it is too easy to miss the subtler essence
of what is happening.

Martin – Right, can you tell me more about that?

Geoff – If I take a single client into the woods, it is
generally with a sense of purpose – a specific issue to work with. I have found
that if one adopts the song line, “If you go down in the woods today, you’re
sure of a big surprise..” then 2 hours simply isn’t enough to facilitate and
deal with what might come up.    

When package a longer programme and what to broaden the
container for what might arise and need to be dealt with by encapsulating the
phrase “an opportunity for reflective space in a busy world”.  I then set up a few general experiences
designed to generate insight and awareness and stay attuned to the requirement
to deal with whatever arises and for people to experience whatever they are
going to experience, usually identifiable with a Gestalt way of working.

Martin – So are you saying that you would set up
particular reflective spaces, say over your weekend for example, when you are
walking on the hills, you wouldn’t reflect on the hill but you would come back
to the house to reflect.

Geoff – I would do both. When I have done the programmes
with a colleague, it tends to be that we might split the group she will be
doing some work with half of them and I would take the other half out.  So again it makes it safer for managing the
numbers and I can sensitively segregate the members of each group roughly
according to their observed fitness and capabilities. This means that I avoid
the likelihood of anyone feeling marginalized because of their fitness levels
etc. Avoiding someone feeling ‘Not Okay’ at a psychological level is so
important in this work, as we are unlikely to know what emotional responses are
likely to arise – it’s the journey to the inner wilderness concept.

I may have set up an exercise, or we may be walking
somewhere when someone says something or stops to observe something that may be
pleasing or disturbing to them. Longer programmes create the opportunity to
‘drop and deal’ with whatever have arisen in that moment for the client. This
means that the planned activity is stopped whilst whatever is going on for the
client, their experience can be attended if that is what they wish.
Alternatively they may just welcome to be present with their experiences and
emotional reactions ‘in the present moment’ as described in Mindfulness work.

Martin – And do you think that works.  This kind of ‘dropping and sharing’ or ‘dropping
and processing’ …

Geoff – Yes it does work, I’ve seen it work very well
with my clients, and it is an opportunity for transformational learning about oneself.

Martin -So even if you are cold and windy and horrible
…?

Geoff – Well if you know your environment and were
aware of the sensitivities and limitations of the group, a sensible and safe
practitioner would quickly identify a more sheltered spot and get agreement to
move the group there – It is about maintaining the comfort factor.

There’s something else in this, it is about how our
relationship with the outdoors can mirror our personal expectations of how
things should be in our lives. All too often we can gauge our day and mood by
good weather or bad and so, in the outdoors environment, we can explore this
type of human expectation for how we may expect the weather (i.e. life) to be
perfect.

Martin -How do you find maintaining that kind of multi-level
focus?   On one level you are aware of the ground, the
terrain, where you are going: and on another level you aware of the people you
are with: and the group’s physical safety and progress: and how are they doing
just in terms of their physical ability.

Also you have to keep an eye on the weather, what the
weather is doing: and then you also have to hold the whole emotional process of
not only the group as a whole: but also the individuals in the group.  So how do you find holding all of that stuff?

Geoff – Well that comes back to what we were discussing
earlier, it is imperative, absolutely imperative that I keep the physicality of
the process, well within the bottom quartile of my personal comfort zone and with
a good knowledge of the terrain.

Martin – So in that way it frees you up to have enough
space to manage everything.

Geoff – It means that I can do something with, if you
like, the unconscious element of the work: I know where I am without having to
mess about with a map and compass and so can concentrate on the emotional needs
and responses of the clients.

Martin – Yes. And also how tiring do you find all of
that?

Geoff – It is tiring; the last programme I did, I took
out 2 groups of 4 people out on a 24-hour expedition, on a back-to-back basis
which included an overnight bivouac for each person. This required me to be
fully engaged for a 48 hour stint with precious little sleep – even my dog,
Maisie, was whacked by the time it finished.

Interestingly, they thought that they were miles from
the house, where the camped,  because up
in the forest you can use your ground, if you are really familiar with it, to walk
them round and round and they haven’t got a clue where they are. 

This is what I want to create for them. So often we
have a huge need to control our environment to ensure that we feel safe. Out
there, they don’t know where they are so that they may experience insecurity
and loss of control and so they may need to learn about trust in others, they
may have to trust me, but in a wholesome way. But all the time I know that I
can get them back to the house in an hour.

Martin – And was the bivouac a solo bivouac or was it a
group?

Geoff – Well as solo as one could make it and keep it
safe.  So they might be say 50 meters
apart.

Martin – Right but you had a sense of where they were.

Geoff – I knew exactly where they were.

Martin – And you were sleeping there as well.

Geoff – As my experience and practice has developed,
I’ve acquired small walky-talky radios so that they feel safer, a safety rope
if you like, whilst they experience the darkness and solitude, and be alone
with that experience and whatever that brings up for them, and they have their
torches or a candle or whatever they want to do. 

As the therapist I can have a choice, I can either be
like the worrying fractious parent and keep checking on them, thereby
interrupting their experience or I have a happy medium. 

And the happy medium I have found is to say to people:
‘I have demonstrated how you use this walky-talky – you switch it off so that
you are conserving battery power: but if they have a problem and they need
support – really need support – they must buzz me.’ In this way, I don’t need
to worry about them and they are obliged to take responsibility for themselves
to stay in the middle of their comfort zones or to extend them.

And I make sure they know how to use the radios and I
keep 2 with me, so that I have got enough battery life to keep mine on through
the night, so that if anyone has a problem I know they will be able to contact
me.

And when I have set them up in their space, before I
leave them for the night, they are going to go through a sort of ritual of cooking
their own meal on a little stove, that I have provided, and just be present in
their own company and make themselves tea, in the knowledge that they are going
to experience going into the darkness overnight and coming into the daylight,
before I take them back home.

Martin – OK.  I
see, and that is the mechanism that you have set up to stay in communication with
them, over night without you having to go and check on them.

Geoff – Yes, without me fussing and it also means I can
get some rest, which is important, because what happened in June was that we
did that with 2 groups, on a back-to-back basis, but on the second day the
weather was rubbish and it wasn’t such a strong group, so I moved the overnight
vision quest site closer to the base. 
This was a really healthy thing to do as well, but they still thought
that they were miles away from the base, because they had walked round all day
long, and had carried all their gear on the their backs (which is a bit of a
metaphor for life – some of the things people take!).  Thanks to the radios, I was able to relay the
camp location to my colleague where home comforts were only 40 minutes away.
The group were ecstatic when found that they had to walk only 40 minutes to the
home comforts of bacon butties and hot showers the next morning!

It is very rewarding to witness people experiencing
anxiety and overcoming it. I have seen people transform the way they engage
with and overcome anxiety and fear and learn about trust. And because I know I
am keeping myself safe, and they are safe: I can allow them to experience fear
and discomfort but they won’t experience real danger, and that is the
difference.

Martin – And how do you kind of manage their anxiety do
you think?  Do you have a group … I get
the sense that 4 is probably the optimum number to try and manage in that.

Geoff – I’ve found that if I’m the sole facilitator and
I’m working with people who are new to the outdoors, at this level of
engagement, that 4 is the maximum number that is right for me to take out if an
overnight camp is involved.

Martin – So how do you – how would you then engage with
someone who was getting anxious, someone was scared, someone was … what would
you do?

Geoff – I’ve found myself dealing with situations like
this on numerous occasions.

Once alerted to the problem, I approach the person and
ensure they know that I am there and I respect them by seeking their permission
to enter the space they are occupying. I sort out any physical needs such as
additional warm or dry clothing and then invite them to share what is troubling
them. I listen to what they have to say or simply be present for them, in the
same way that I would be for any client except that we usually have a
comforting brew of tea or hot chocolate.

This happened with one particular client who had
experienced childhood sexual abuse and the event proved transformational for
her – to be treated respectfully and appropriately by a man…..in the dark!

Martin – And in a sense you are right: in a room where
perhaps that wouldn’t have happened, that is the kind of real enactment of
something.

Geoff – I have an interesting, book which is now out of
print, called ‘The Conscious Use of Metaphor In Outward Bound’. Its
subject is about adventure therapy but I like the concept of isomorphic and
non-isomorphic metaphors.  An isomorphic
metaphor is where they end up with a better result than they had expected and a
non-isomorphic metaphor occurs if they get the expected bad result.

So if somebody has a metaphor for their life such as
“Life seems to be an endless uphill struggle” an isomorphic metaphor occurs
when you can facilitate them actually getting to the top of real steep hill. If
the practitioner gets it wrongs, and the client fails to surmount the hill,
then the client’s negative view of life is reinforced.

Martin – Right that is interesting then, so it is a
different kind of re-enactment of something isn’t it.

Geoff – Yes, in the outdoors people experience
discomfort, but are ‘invited’ to expose themselves to it, to one degree or
another. If they are respected, supported and encouraged and actually get their
needs met to overcome the identified difficulties, they can have a good,
growthful experience.

Martin – Yes – I think that is really interesting – and
I have got that book somewhere.

Geoff – it is a fantastic book

Martin – Yes.

Geoff – as for the concept of adventure therapy, I
don’t believe that you need to take people climbing or abseiling to create a
situation where they experience fear. I’ve found that, unless the clients are
already outdoors enthusiasts, they get scared anyway and meet their inner fears
– they will find and confront their own fears anywhere out there.

Martin – Yes they carry them around with them anyway.  Umm, that is great actually Geoff.  Anything else you want to say about nature as
a therapeutic space?

Geoff – Yes, nature has looked after mankind for a
long, long time. It has provided for us and is getting worn out. The challenge
for mankind is to use the Earth’s dwindling resources wisely and sparingly.

I have studied some of the teachings of the Native American
Indians which include concepts such as where rocks are the record keepers,
holding memories – carried into our traditions of gravestone inscriptions. They
speak of trees being ‘the standing people’ there to support us and this
manifests as the wood for our fires and timber for our houses etc. I would say
that nature has messages for us which teach us well, if we are prepared to
listen to them. 

And I can illustrate this point very well. There are so
many places I know that have fantastic trees; ones that cling to rock faces and
big old pine trees that have fallen over with root plates that are about 12
feet high. I have taken people there to talk about and explore those well
rooted and those fallen trees.  These
trees become metaphors for how sometimes people find their strength by going
out in gangs, and associate with groups of people, so that they can find their
power in a group, if you know what I mean. In times of trouble, though, the
tree still falls down, unsupported by ‘the gang’. And that can be like the
attachments that we make and hold on to, but that doesn’t necessarily stop us
being alone and falling over when things go wrong. 

Conversely the well rooted tree can represent how we
feel about ourselves and the ground we occupy on the earth and our right to be
here, when we engage with some of the little oak and mountain ash trees up
around the crags, which have grown by chance. 
These trees haven’t been purposefully planted by the forestry
commission. It is as if they have chosen their place and they hang on to it,
adapting to the environment.

So there is a metaphor there about how grounded we
are.  If you were a tree sort of tree
would you be – how deep would your roots be and how grounded and solid are you?

Martin – That is powerful, yes.

Geoff – And there are lessons there you know.  There are trees that have fallen over but
then they start new shoots.  It is about nature’s
ability and will to adapt and survive – we can learn so much from nature.

Martin – Yes that is very useful.

Geoff – In a very philosophical way I feel it tends
towards the realm of the transpersonal – events and experiences that go beyond everyday
analysis and explanation.

Martin – Yes, very much a transpersonal perspective on
the process.

Geoff – Yep.

Martin – That is great Geoff.  Is there anything else you think needs to be
said, or anything I haven’t asked that maybe you feel I should have.

Geoff – No, I think that is about it. I have found this
conversation to be a very good experience – even talking about it reconnects me
with my passion for this way of working…the hard work…the pain and above all,
the power wilderness therapy has to go straight to the heart of the matter and
offer the gift of transformation. If this way of working can be available to
the right people, who honour the work and respect the facilitator, it is
fantastic.