Doug Nelson is a very early leader in developing what ended up being Wilderness Therapy programs, and he shared his memories about the early days of Wilderness Therapy for adolescents with talk show host Lon Woodbury on L.A. Talk Radio's Struggling Teens weekly interview.
Doug Nelson
Doug Nelson got involved in Wilderness Therapy as the Director or the BYU Survival Program in 1973, and he served until 2008. During this period, he also founded Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS). Later, while he was still a professor at BYU, he started the Wilderness Academy which evolved into Aspen Health Services.
Recalling the Early Days of Wilderness Therapy
The entire Wilderness Therapy movement grew largely out of scholastic experiments at Brigham Young College, in Provo, Utah, in the late 1960s, when Larry Dean Olsen provided a program for students teaching them all about wilderness living. His program was modelled on the structure of the highly successful Outward Bound program. Olsen took stressed and troubled students into the desert to find out how to live in the wild and develop survival skills, and he began noticing improved habits, behavior and scholastic success. One of his pupils was Doug Nelson, who really felt an instant affinity for the 30 day survival program. It reminded him of his childhood in a Southern Utah farm neighborhood, where he had spent a substantial quantity of his youth, teenage years, and very early adult years backpacking through the wilderness. One fortuitous event lead to another and within two years, he came to be the supervisor of the BYU Survival Program.
Describing the BOSS program, Nelson shared how students on a 21 day exploration would come home changed for the better, much more appreciative of their parents and compliant with their desires. As a result of this success, after he sold the BOSS program, Nelson developed a brand-new program for teens. This was the Wilderness Academy, which combined the 21 day program with a therapeutic part to integrate the numerous lessons learned in the wilderness with everyday life. Specialists in the field would draw parallels between a youngster's wilderness experiences with what was taking place in their home. Additionally, parents were urged to spend 3 days with their kid at trail's end, and they were reimbursed for part of the expenses if they were willing to make this extra effort.
Nelson shared a few of the therapeutic stories that emerged during his Wilderness trips. Usually, it was discovered that the child was behaving out because of issues connected to their mothers and fathers. For example, in one instance, the parents were considering a divorce. In another case, the father was too preoccupied with his job as an attorney to invest much time parenting.
Nelson described how Steve Cartisano created an effective advertising program that made the Wilderness Therapy industry so popular. Nevertheless, there were many opportunistic programs run like boot camps as opposed to healing programs, and this resulted in fatalities, forcing various States to make new regulations to make sure safety factors were followed.
Now retired, Nelson played a significant role in the early days of Wilderness Therapy, helping it evolve from an experiment at BYU to becoming a powerful therapeutic option for troubled teenagers when nothing else appeared to work.
Doug Nelson
Doug Nelson got involved in Wilderness Therapy as the Director or the BYU Survival Program in 1973, and he served until 2008. During this period, he also founded Boulder Outdoor Survival School (BOSS). Later, while he was still a professor at BYU, he started the Wilderness Academy which evolved into Aspen Health Services.
Recalling the Early Days of Wilderness Therapy
The entire Wilderness Therapy movement grew largely out of scholastic experiments at Brigham Young College, in Provo, Utah, in the late 1960s, when Larry Dean Olsen provided a program for students teaching them all about wilderness living. His program was modelled on the structure of the highly successful Outward Bound program. Olsen took stressed and troubled students into the desert to find out how to live in the wild and develop survival skills, and he began noticing improved habits, behavior and scholastic success. One of his pupils was Doug Nelson, who really felt an instant affinity for the 30 day survival program. It reminded him of his childhood in a Southern Utah farm neighborhood, where he had spent a substantial quantity of his youth, teenage years, and very early adult years backpacking through the wilderness. One fortuitous event lead to another and within two years, he came to be the supervisor of the BYU Survival Program.
Describing the BOSS program, Nelson shared how students on a 21 day exploration would come home changed for the better, much more appreciative of their parents and compliant with their desires. As a result of this success, after he sold the BOSS program, Nelson developed a brand-new program for teens. This was the Wilderness Academy, which combined the 21 day program with a therapeutic part to integrate the numerous lessons learned in the wilderness with everyday life. Specialists in the field would draw parallels between a youngster's wilderness experiences with what was taking place in their home. Additionally, parents were urged to spend 3 days with their kid at trail's end, and they were reimbursed for part of the expenses if they were willing to make this extra effort.
Nelson shared a few of the therapeutic stories that emerged during his Wilderness trips. Usually, it was discovered that the child was behaving out because of issues connected to their mothers and fathers. For example, in one instance, the parents were considering a divorce. In another case, the father was too preoccupied with his job as an attorney to invest much time parenting.
Nelson described how Steve Cartisano created an effective advertising program that made the Wilderness Therapy industry so popular. Nevertheless, there were many opportunistic programs run like boot camps as opposed to healing programs, and this resulted in fatalities, forcing various States to make new regulations to make sure safety factors were followed.
Now retired, Nelson played a significant role in the early days of Wilderness Therapy, helping it evolve from an experiment at BYU to becoming a powerful therapeutic option for troubled teenagers when nothing else appeared to work.
About the Author:
Find out more about Struggling Teens. Lon Woodbury has the recorded the entire interview on his L.A. Talk Radio show for people to listen to at any time.
No comments:
Post a Comment