An Environmental Scan on Adventure Therapy in Canada, is a published research paper in the Journal of Experiential Education. An environmental scan is a business tool typically used by the adventure tourism sector, of the possible opportunities, threats, and growth of a business. Their use of this translates to the following data sets. 

“(a) an examination of final reports related to a series of national symposiums on AT in Canada, (b) a review of academic literature related to AT in Canada, and (c) a summary of AT programs and courses offered at post-secondary institutions across Canada.” (Ritchie Et. Al, 2016) 

They took in the data from the three different stages of adventure therapy in Canada as a broad spectrum of the different uses and implications towards adventure therapy as a whole, and amassed them into one research paper toward the state of adventure therapy throughout the country. They devised three research questions for themselves to answer through the course of the paper. 

“Research Question 1: What do the CATS*1 final reports reveal about the state of AT*2 in Canada?
Research Question 2: What does the academic literature reveal about the state of scholarship related to AT in Canada?
Research Question 3: What types of post-secondary college and university courses and programs offer training in AT in Canada?” (Ritchie Et. Al. 2016) 

*1 Canadian Adventure Therapy Symposium
*2 Adventure Therapy 

They expanded their terms to create the broadest scope possible of results, trying to encompass the multitude of different names or program titles that all correspond within adventure therapy. They also explain that the terms are all used in different contexts depending on the region of origin and sometimes the actual organization, and that creating a singular definition for adventure therapy has been an issue plaguing such a specific sector of the outdoor industry for years.  

These research questions pointed to major themes throughout the paper, and through adventure therapy as a whole in Canada, while there is an increasing drive for adventure therapy in Canada, it is still very small, and very separate by region, in fact, “one of the recommendations from CATS 4 stated that there was “no intention to move towards a formalized body in the foreseeable future””. This separation was further influenced by the lack of official papers in adventure therapy, the authors found 113 papers using the scope of terms they defined in their search, and found that there was a momentous difference in the usage and implication of terms across Canadian literature on adventure therapy,  

“Given the wide variety of AT-related terms used in the literature, no particular term or group of terms could be selected, defined, and examined as best representing AT in Canada. For instance, of the 13 papers that used the term adventure therapy, only two involved a peer-reviewed research study, and two were unpublished master’s theses;” (Ritchie Et. Al. 2016) 

This paper is an ideal reference for my thesis work, because it is a current study on adventure therapy as a whole in the Canadian context, but it also serves as a great starting point to delve further into the research behind adventure therapy, using the research they cite as a bouncing off point. The issue I have found in my research so far is that what I am focusing on is so specific that there isn’t actually very much literature about it. There is a plethora on adventure therapy programming, therapy processing techniques, and studies on the goals and accomplishments of adventure therapy thus far, all of these are incredibly important works to cite and to expand knowledge of adventure therapy, but none focus on the spreading of adventure therapy or its limitations in programming implementation. The next stage for this research has two paths, either to spread into a business mindset, looking at marketing and advertising of adventure therapy providers vs. traditional adventure tourism providers, or to aim towards psychology, and research the implications of adventure therapy, where is it being used, and how to spread its knowledge to more clinical therapy providers, giving a professional therapist more outlets for which to help a patient. 

 

Ritchie, S. Patrick, K. et. Al (2016, September) “An Environmental Scan on Adventure Therapy in Canada” Retrieved September 29th, 2018. Journal of Experiential Education. Vol. 39, Is. 3, Pg. 303-320. DOI: 10.1177/1053825916655443.Â