Berman, D. Berman J. (2013). The Role of Therapeutic Adventure in Meeting Mental Health Needs of Children and Adolescents: Finding A Niche in The Health Care Systems of The United States and The United Kingdom. Journal of Experiential Education, Vol. 36, Pg. 51-64. DOI: 10.1177/1053825913481581

This paper starts by acknowledging the difficult setting that is adolescent mental health care. This specific area of the health care industry has long been studied, challenged, critiqued, and recognized as one of the most difficult areas to gauge or create success. The authors use this establishing background to highlight the deficit in adolescent mental health care, which they posit adventure therapy as the answer to. The authors then use the paper to outline an interpretation of how adventure therapy could grow to become part of the greater mental healthcare community. They identify some key factors that need change in order to integrate adventure therapy into the care spectrum, namely an increase in research, training, certification and conjoining it into the continuum of care. They breakdown the possibilities in each of these areas, calling for more research and evidence-based methods in adventure therapy as well as a more grounded look at adventure therapy, better evaluating what it can and cannot do, so as to better integrate it with the larger scope of care. The concept of integrating adventure therapy into the larger medical field, or simply trying to remove it from the “alternative therapies” concept group in the medical field is a novel idea, one that the intended research is also heavily focused on, and the authors breakdown as two professionals working in the healthcare industry to identify the steps and processes needed to do this makes this work a seminal piece in the larger scope of research around where adventure therapy could go and why it is not at the level it could be.

Gillis, H. Kivlighan, D. Russel, K. (2017). Process Factors Explaining Psycho-Social Outcomes in Adventure Therapy. Psychotherapy, Vol. 54, Pg. 273-280. DOI: 10.1037/pst0000131

An experimental analysis review, this work is the result of a survey performed to assess the quality and outcomes of an adventure therapy experience. This experiment is built on the adventure therapy experience scale, an attempt to gain quantitative evidence on the therapeutic factors that affect change in the adventure therapy experience. The experiment was to give constant monitoring of empirical progress of 168 males during a 90-day adventure therapy experience. This was achieved through the outcome questionnaire, a questionnaire establishing current self-assessed mindfulness, mood and progress, given at intake, every two weeks, and at discharge. The important factors from this paper is the identifiers of success and influence of the adventure therapy program, as well as the direct application of the adventure therapy experience scale, an incredibly recent work in the field of adventure therapy, and possible pathway for the future of quantitative, scientific evidence of the success of a typically obtuse scale of success measurement.

Harper, N. J. (2009). Family Crisis and The Enrollment of Children in Wilderness Treatment. Journal of Experiential Education, Vol. 31, Pg. 447-450. DOI:10.1053/105382591268259.

Nevin Harper has a multitude of experience and papers within the field of adventure therapy and child and youth care, as well as two different paper of his referenced in this bibliography alone, for this paper, Harper and colleagues aimed to determine the effectiveness of enrolment in a wilderness therapy program. To do this they specified the impact on the family unit of the participant, and developed a series of tests and questionnaires to establish the state of the youth and family unit at intake, mid-way and outtake moments. They identified four major themes through these responses, family crisis abated, meaningful separation, mixed emotions and new beginnings/not fixed. The end result of this study and the identification of these four themes in the family unit leads to an acceptance and relevance of wilderness treatment for youth who are at risk or in need of major intervention. The findings correlated towards a “blank slate” for families and youth, along with a recognition of the need for more treatment and in a larger than expected sample, recognition of need for family/parental treatment as well as continued treatment for the youth. Harper ends the paper with a recognition of a positive success scale for adventure therapy, at least in relation to family unit intervention and stabilization, as well as a call to action to increase research and possible integration of family intervention therapies within wilderness therapy.

Harper, N. J. (2017). Wilderness Therapy, Therapeutic Camping and Adventure Education in Child and Youth Care Literature. Children and Youth services Review, Vol. 83, Pg. 68- 79.  DOI:10.1016/j.childyouth.2017.10.30

A scoping review was designed to encompass literature around adventure therapy in the child and youth field. Within the field of child and youth care, terms such as wilderness, adventure, therapy, recreation, and camp were used to identify publishing’s related to their interest. They recognized trends from the gathered publications and fit them into three main categories, wilderness and adventure therapy, therapeutic camping, adventure education and physical activity. The three categories had varying focuses, some of the most prominent to this current scope of research were in the wilderness and adventure therapy category, some of these insights included multiple concepts around the techniques and application of adventure therapy. Most important was the creation of a typical archetype personality who engages in adventure therapy, being described as someone with substance abuse issues who is oppositional, typically combined with recent trauma or self-harming behaviors.

Ritchie, S. Patrick, K. et. Al (2016, September) An Environmental Scan on Adventure Therapy in Canada. Journal of Experiential Education. Vol. 39, Pg. 303-320. DOI: 10.1177/1053825916655443.

A large-scale analysis on the current state of adventure therapy from an academic perspective. This paper centers itself as an environmental scan, a full review of a topic from many different areas of focus, specifically, reports from a symposium on adventure therapy, current schooling or educational pathways and official academic publications on adventure therapy. This is important because it gives a very well-defined view of the current state of adventure therapy in Canada. Highlights from this paper are the lacking of both academic publications and educational pathways on adventure therapy, showing only 3 distinct university programs on adventure therapy and an utter lack in available research. The other large point gained form this paper is the undefined nature of adventure therapy itself, across Canada there is a slew of different terminology, applications and expectations surrounding adventure therapy, and this completely undefined nature of adventure therapy, along with a resistance around creating one, shows how diverse and wild adventure therapy as a concept remains in Canada.

Shellman, A. (2014). Empowerment and Experiential Education: A State of Knowledge Paper. Journal of Experiential Education, Vol. 37, Pg. 18-30. DOI:10.1177/1053825913518896.

This piece of work is a research paper on the sue of empowerment in experiential education, and recognizes it as a catalyst for change in an individual through experiential education. This paper serves best as a knowledge building piece on the experiential education concepts that operate behind most common adventure therapy techniques. A portion of the paper is dedicated to the components of psychological empowerment, identifying the underlying intrapersonal, interactional and behavioral components that help to facilitate this change. A strong basis in experiential education is needed for the work in question due to the linked nature of many of the terms and theories, a large proportion of adventure therapy concepts have their roots in the academia of experiential education.

Tucker, A., Norton, C. (2013). The Use of Adventure Therapy Techniques by Clinical Social Workers: Implications for Practice and Training. Clinical Social Work Journal, Vol. 41, Pg. 333-343. DOI:10.1007/s10615-012-0411-4

This paper was a summarization of the results from a survey done on clinical social workers across America, the survey was on the use and knowledge base for adventure therapy by practicing social workers. The data results from this survey gave incredibly valuable numbers, particularly around the interest in adventure therapy by clinicians. Of the returned surveys, they found that 10% of social workers had practiced adventure therapy, however it also highlighted a much more pressing issue, of the 10% that had practiced adventure therapy only 6.6% had received formal training in adventure therapy, and 17.6% had received training in adventure therapy at all. One of the final sentiments of the paper and one of the most important facts to note for the larger scope of work, is the upswing of interest in adventure therapy practices as well as in a formal education, noting that 48% of those who use adventure therapy would want formal education in it, and 25% of those who have never used adventure therapy techniques would also be interested in formal education around the topic.