Counselling is often perceived as just for people who want to sit around and talk about their feelings. However, there is an entire movement within psychology to move mental health promotion from in the office to out into the world. Often termed “Adventure Based Therapy”, this perspective has its roots in programs like Outward Bound where people are presented with relatively extreme physical and environmental obstacles in nature. The lessons learned about their personal strength, resiliency, and collaborative coping skills can then theoretically influence their everyday lives.

One of the difficulties with a program where young people are sent into the wild to learn these lessons for a week or two at a time, is that it is both expensive, and the generalization to their everyday lives is less than one might expect. The further an experience is from one’s day to day, the less likely it is to make an impact on the everyday.

Currently, one of my colleagues at Child and Youth Mental Health, David Snook, and I are running an activity based counselling group. In an attempt to maintain the benefits of an activity-based model, we are using similar principles but differ by running it over a longer period of time and basing it in our community. With the gracious permission of School District 33’s Summer Learning Program, we scheduled our group at a local middle school to run several days a week for most of July.

Basically, the group consists of engaging in a game, or activity and then debriefing it. I’m sure that to the parents of the Summer Learning Program students it looks like we’re merely playing games with a group of 13- 17 year old young people. However, the magic happens in the debriefing process. The first step is to get the young people to talk about “What” happened during the activity. X threw the ball too hard and no one was able to catch it, Y worked entirely on her own and didn’t collaborate with her team members; Z didn’t get an opportunity to throw the ball at all, etc. Then we move into “So What”, which consists of distilling the common themes and the impact on group members. One moment that was really helpful in our current group was when a participant shared their frustration with the inattentive behaviour of another member that led to the group initiative being unsuccessful. Often young people are unpracticed at considering how their behaviour impacts others, and these group activities provide an opportunity for feedback and raising of consciousness. The last section of the debriefing process is termed “Now What”. This is the opportunity for everyone to consider how what we learned and experienced in the activity may relate to how we operate in other areas of our lives. For example, often young people have fears and anxieties about looking silly or foolish in front of one’s peers. This might be an opportunity for s/he to risk looking silly and not have the world end. The three debriefing questions may seem simple and obvious, but the impact is generally quite impressive.

The sneaky thing about Activity Based Counselling is that it’s fun, and it allows us to introduce and promote mindfulness, social skills, emotional regulation skills, and other aspects of psychoeducation without too much lecturing. In fact, David and I are merely glorified participants and set the stage for the kids to coach each other in their learning.

Our group was originally intended for young people who have challenges around anxiety and who want to build their capacity. Because we’re targeting young people with anxiety, activity based counselling gives them a safe place to challenge their unhelpful cognitions around their anxious thoughts and feelings and hopefully is good practice to realize that just because s/he is afraid, doesn’t mean something is actually scary.

For more information about Adventure Based Counselling the book “Exploring Islands of Healing: New Perspectives on Adventure Based Counseling” by Schoel and Maizell is an excellent resource.

Marie Amos, MA, RCC, is a Mental Health Therapist with the Ministry of Children and Family Development, Chilliwack.