
Our Problem With Vulnerability
February 8, 2019
The Freedom Of Wilderness Therapy
February 12, 2019Women run through the cycles of traditional treatment and therapy for years until they “find what works” for them. Making a decision on a treatment program is difficult in an industry that offers such a wide variety of approaches to recovery from both trauma, substance use, and behavioral disorders. There is no exaggeration to the sentiment that “there’s no one way to recover” or that “what works for one person won’t work for everyone”. Unfortunately, there can be much of the same thing when it comes to traditional approaches to treatment. Women who go through program after program aren’t offered much of a break in tradition, which in turn keeps their brains running in very similar patterns when it comes to recovery.
Wilderness therapy for women is a break in tradition without breaking the evidence-based and proven successes of traditional treatment. Take many of the same effective therapeutic modalities, but take them out of the comfort of traditional treatment center walls, and you’re given an entirely new experience. Among many other things, treatment for mental health issues needs to be disruptive- disrupting old, negative patterns in a way that makes room for the development of new, healthy and positive patterns of recovery. Without the comforts of everyday living, like four walls and a roof, for example, wilderness therapy offers women a safe but intense disruption from their daily lives. Through a comprehensive wilderness and survival curriculum, women are thrust into a lifestyle of self-sufficiency which likely out-compares any other situation they have been in thus far. Learning to create fire, cook on an open campfire stove, set up shelter, climb a mountain, work with a team, and endure the challenges of nature interrupts all of the preconceived notions of living which come in an urban or suburban environment. There’s a reason why time in nature can be called enlightenment and why poets, authors, philosophers, and researchers alike have been fascinated by the effects of spending time camping in the great outdoors. We all need a return to our roots as humans- quite literally meaning mankind made from the earth. When women are suffering without sight of reprieve, that return to nature, their nature, can be the break in tradition they need to find the empowerment necessary for thoroughly changing their lives.
Made by women for women, RedCliff is the only wilderness therapy program of its kind for women ages 18-30. Life is an adventure. Start living it today. Call 801.370.2274 for more information on our treatment programs today.