Treatment Philosophy

"Wonderful. We were recommended to Second Nature because of its sophisticated and clinical therapy approach, and our expectations were definitely fulfilled."

Second Nature Entrada for Adults Parent, California

Second Nature Entrada's objectives during wilderness treatment are threefold: natural observation and assessment, clinical assessment, and preparation for long-term solutions. These objectives begin to highlight the effectiveness of wilderness therapy, and even more specifically, why Second Nature Entrada for Adults has emerged as the premier adult wilderness therapy program.

Remote - Free of Distractions

What you'll realize when you enter the wilderness is that the distractions you've adapted to your lifestyle are not as easily present. The remoteness of the backcountry provides little to hide behind. This will empower you to focus directly on your issues without distraction.

Although you may demonstrate high functioning in several areas of your life, the richness of the wilderness environment will evoke the unhealthy patterns of behavior that brought you to this point in your life. Additionally, your group experience facilitates engaging with your peers and field instructors without using familiar escape routes of shutting down, running away, or other responses you may have used to avoid confrontation and accountability. You are provided with a safe and patient environment to confront what you may be avoiding.

Empowerment

Nature is unrelenting; it cannot be negotiated with or manipulated. Parents, teachers and therapists can all be emotionally manipulated.  A towering cumulus cloud cannot.  There is no negotiating the weather.  A mountain will not feel guilty and step aside for a hiker. You will experience the natural lessons that life has to offer by living in the natural environment. Your therapist, Field Instructors and peers will help hold you to appropriate boundaries and create natural and logical consequences that mirror the achievements and challenges in the broader journey of life. Your experience becomes a life lesson of how ineffective past coping strategies were, while equally supporting your insight in adapting your actions into successful and valuable tools.

Metaphor

The use of metaphor is recognized as the most effective way in bypassing your natural resistance and defenses in therapy. Wilderness therapy is rich in metaphors. Teachers' lessons are filled with metaphor, allegory, and symbols due to the effectiveness of insight and personal pondering. Your treatment team, made up of your therapist and Field Instructors are trained and skilled in relating and processing these metaphors so they make practical sense for application, assessment and future planning.

Experiential

The experiential aspect of wilderness therapy allows you to not just seek change, but actually practice and execute change. You must achieve and live the change. Your narrow experience of living in your wilderness group becomes a microcosm from which you and your therapist can extrapolate the lessons and experiences to broader contexts of living. You will often unconsciously recreate, however subtly, the same type of relationships, patterns, symptoms and dynamics you did at home and your therapist can use these characteristics to help you first see issues in a new light, and then change patterns using new insights and skills.

Self Esteem

The wilderness experience is very foreign to most people and represents a challenge even to the experienced camper. If you have a poor self-image, it's often manifested in the initial stages with an "I can't do this" response. To this we respond, "I know it is hard, but I believe you can." You may have cultivated the skills to avoid challenges and discomfort in its infinite forms, while your skills of adaptation, resilience, and other coping attributes have gone dormant. Your feelings of confidence, competence, and strength will re-emerge as the short weeks unfold. This new sense of confidence and strength will carry into other areas of your life. Early on in your wilderness experience you'll find yourself saying, "I can do this". There is no message more empowering. Success in the wilderness is only a surprise to you. You will succeed. With this success you can internalize self-respect, self-efficacy, and confidence.