Our Program
“In my opinion Second Nature sets the standard for clinical outdoor therapy. They offer an exceptional clinical program for both students and parents. I trust Second Nature's clinical expertise. The therapists are exceptional.”
Northern California Educational Counselor
Second Nature utilizes a therapeutic wilderness model: primitive living, ceremony, metaphor, and affinity for the beauty and spirituality of nature. This model lends itself well to natural and logical consequences rather than contrived, verbal, didactic therapy models. The child is removed from his/her comfort zone and immersed in a new culture, where therapists provide a small universe of lessons mirroring the larger universe in which the child lives.
Shelter building, backpacking, simple daily chores, group cooperation, relationship skills, and problem solving are taught “in the moment.” In spite of the often-resistant response to therapy, the adolescent is engaged in a safe, practical, life-changing lesson. The staff and therapists move between traditional models of therapy and assessment to symbolic lessons, bypassing defensiveness. In some instances, your child's therapist may utilize a Walkabout for your child. A Walkabout is a guided, intensive therapeutic intervention used to interrupt or reward patterns for particular behaviors. Interdependence and high levels of engagement in therapy, unique in adolescent treatment, are facilitated through leverage inherent in wilderness living. Students often resistant to outpatient therapy models at home, respond to the program with openness, honesty, accountability and insight.
Hard Skills, Soft Skills, Therapy Assignments
The Second Nature Journey Packet, carried by the student contains therapist and staff assignments as well as sections for personally tailored assignments. Hard skill assignments are experientially based and include bow drill fires, shelter building, and low-impact camping. Soft skills are reading, writing, and clinical in nature. Soft skills include communication skills training, compliance and respect toward others, letter writing and group therapy participation.
