How Adventure-Based Therapy is opening new pathways for healing in your practice - one mousetrap at a time.

It’s a Friday afternoon, and you’ve just arrived for a group therapy session.

I bet you can picture it: a circle of chairs, maybe a table with some coffee in the corner. Maybe the fluorescent lighting flickers a little, maybe the air conditioning is cranked just a bit too high. You smile at the group members as they arrive, invite them to sit. Their chairs rustle a little on the carpet as they settle in.

But what if we changed the picture? 

What if, in place of the fluorescent-lit room, you’re hosting your group in the forest, surrounded by tall trees, deep moss, habitat-rich nurse logs? What if you can feel the post-rain sun on your shoulders, and a gentle breeze wafting in from the north carries the rich scent of petrichor and lunchtime’s retiring campfire? What if the carpet rustle is replaced by the boldly alive squelch of your boots on the damp earth?

And what if, instead of a circle of chairs, your group is surrounded by a labyrinth of live mousetraps?

Welcome to Adventure-Based therapy.

It’s novel. And as founder and executive director of AdventureForward, I’ve found it to be an exciting new way forward. 

I’ve worked in Chicago for many years as a psychotherapist and addiction specialist helping people recover from chemical addictions and compulsive behaviors through individual and group therapy. When traditional talk therapy failed to get the results many of my clients were hoping for, I turned to kinesthetic experiences to help “jumpstart” their recovery. Addiction is an embodied behavior - it’s active, participatory, and it follows that an active, participatory practice makes a practical replacement. 

Play, for a lot of adults, becomes drinking, going out to the clubs or whatever, and then that leads to addictive behaviours. When we encourage people to find other ways to be playful as an adult, to use their bodies and recapture that sense of adventure, novelty, and fun, it gives them an opportunity to experience a kind of play that doesn’t harm them.

By taking therapy out of the traditional setting and introducing an element of safe, sober play, I found my clients could engage more easily, commit more deeply, and see real results significantly faster, while avoiding some of the common pitfalls of traditional programs.

Sometimes people are told they’ve got to believe in a power greater than themself. Folks who have had negative experiences with religion can be resistant to that idea. It can push them away. 

I hand them a piece of material. The group forms a trust circle, and we all hold on to the fabric and lean back, trusting the strength and the commitment of the collective will keep us from falling. 

So the group becomes a higher power. It's kind of concrete, it's tangible, and for a lot of people, it helps them connect the dots better than an ethereal, spiritual idea.

Even though safety is always a priority so no harm will come to the participants in Adventure-Based Group therapy, I don’t hesitate to introduce a little perceived risk.

Like, for example, a minefield of mousetraps.

I ask people to think of emotional traps in their lives, like arguing with someone with a bad temper, or the habit of enabling someone, wherever they find themselves repeatedly getting stuck. And then I ask group members to have another person lead them through the mousetrap minefield blindfolded, guiding them with their words. 

It’s about trust, and listening. In 12 step programs, people are encouraged to have a sponsor, someone to guide them through the steps. This is a very embodied experience of trusting a guide. 

And yes, it’s a little scary. We don't want anyone to actually walk away with an injury. But we want them to feel a little sense of: “I'm trying something that's a little outside my comfort zone. I’m trusting someone else with something that matters.”

The more I put adventure-based therapy into practice, the more convinced I became that this tool should be in the toolkit of every facility or practitioner. To make it easy for anyone to incorporate these activities into their practice, I partnered with colleague Michelle Cummings, an expert in group games and gear and owner of Training Wheels. Together, we created a kit based on my 2018 book Healing in Action: Adventure-Based Counseling with Therapy Groups. 

Michelle designed the kit, Recovery Adventure Day, to specifically align with the familiar 12 steps. For example, step five is admitting to another person the nature of our fears and resentments. . So Michelle made a beautiful deck of laminated cards that have all kinds of fears written on them: Apophobia, fear of bees, etc. They’re completely unique - you can’t get them anywhere else - and that’s only the beginning of what you’ll find in the Recovery Adventure Day kit.

The Recovery Adventure Day kit makes it possible for any practitioner to easily incorporate adventure-based therapy into their offerings. And while a beautiful natural setting is certainly a bonus, it isn’t required - the kit is equipped with tools that make it possible to create meaningful group experiences indoors or out. With my seasoned guidance and Michelle’s artfully crafted materials, the on-ramp to a successful adventure therapy practice is simple, accessible, and even fun.

I believe everyone in our line of work could significantly enliven their treatment program by incorporating some adventure therapy into what they’re doing. The portability of our programming makes it possible to work with a group in a room for half a day, or on a multiple-day camping excursion.

People love the experience. They develop a sense of camaraderie and connection. They explore. They open up. They play. It’s transformative stuff.

The Recovery Adventure Day kit is available now.

Get Your Recovery Adventure Day Kit