Drawing on the leading voices of international researchers and practitioners, Outdoor Therapies provides readers with an overview of practices for the helping professions. Sharing outdoor approaches ranging from garden therapy to wilderness therapy and from equine-assisted therapy to surf therapy, Harper and Dobud have drawn common threads from therapeutic practices that integrate connection with nature and experiential activity to redefine the "person-in-environment" approach to human health and well-being. Readers will learn about the benefits and advantages of helping clients get the treatment, service, and care they need outside of conventional, office-based therapies. Providing readers with a range of approaches that can be utilized across a variety of practice settings and populations, this book is essential reading for students, practitioners, theorists, and researchers in counseling, social work, youth work, occupational therapy, and psychology.

Solution-Focused Practice in Outdoor Therapy presents a comprehensive model for working therapeutically with clients outdoors, with adventure, and in any outdoor setting – from a typical one-hour session to multi-day expeditions. Chapters lay out a robust and pragmatic model for opening the counseling room door using solution-focused methods. Dobud and Natynczuk bring together research on best practice in psychotherapy, monitoring therapeutic outcomes, safe and inclusive leadership, supervision, and self-care to present a robust framework for working therapeutically outdoors. Case vignettes are presented throughout the book, and a field manual is available for free download with purchase of the book.

This book brings together an international group of authors to discuss the outdoor environmental education (OEE) theory and practice that educators can use to support teaching and learning in higher education. The book contents are organised around a recently established list of threshold concepts that can be used to describe the knowledge and skills that university students would develop if they complete a major in outdoor education. There are six key sections: the theoretical foundations and philosophies of OEE; the pedagogical approaches and issues involved in teaching OEE; the ways in which OEE is a social, cultural and environmental endeavour; how outdoor educators can advocate for social justice; key approaches to safety management; and the need for on-going professional practice. The threshold concepts that form the premise of the book describe outdoor educators as creating opportunities for experiential learning using pedagogies that align their programme’s purpose and practice. Outdoor educators are place-responsive, and see their work as a social, cultural and environmental endeavour. They advocate for social and environmental justice, and they understand and apply safety principles and routinely engage in reflective practice. This book will provide clarity and direction for emerging and established outdoor educators around the world and will also be relevant to students and professionals working in related fields such as environmental education, adventure therapy, and outdoor recreation.

Nature-Based Play and Expressive Therapies addresses a wide range of healing modalities and case studies that can be used in both indoor and outdoor environments. Each chapter includes vignettes to support the interventions and approaches presented. Readers will find a diverse array of helpful handouts and topics explored, including tips for creating outdoor healing gardens and labyrinths, guidelines for using nature to address trauma, working with sandplay and storytelling in nature, adapting nature-based interventions via telehealth, and much more. Chapters focus on work with young children and teens in individual settings as well as work with families and groups, making this book an important read for a wide range of mental health professionals.

The ‘outdoors’ is a physical and ideological space in which people engage with their environment, but it is also an important vehicle for learning and for leisure. The Routledge Handbook of Outdoor Studies is the first book to attempt to define and survey the multi-disciplinary set of approaches that constitute the broad field of outdoor studies, including outdoor recreation, outdoor education, adventure education, environmental studies, physical culture studies and leisure studies. It reflects upon the often haphazard development of outdoor studies as a discipline, critically assesses current knowledge in outdoor studies, and identifies further opportunities for future research in this area. With a broader sweep than any other book yet published on the topic, this handbook traces the philosophical and conceptual contours of the discipline, as well as exploring key contemporary topics and debates, and identifying important issues in education and professional practice. It examines the cultural, social and political contexts in which people experience the outdoors, including perspectives on outdoor studies from a wide range of countries, providing the perfect foundation for any student, researcher, educator or outdoors practitioner looking to deepen their professional knowledge of the outdoors and our engagement with the world around us.

Trauma in the Creative and Embodied Therapies is a cross-professional book looking at current approaches to working therapeutically and socially with trauma in a creative and embodied way. The book pays attention to different kinds of trauma – environmental, sociopolitical, early relational, abuse in its many forms, and the trauma of illness – with contributions from international experts, drawn from the fields of the arts therapies, the embodied psychotherapies, as well as nature-based therapy and Playback Theatre. The book is divided into three sections: the first section takes into consideration the wider sociopolitical perspective of trauma and the power of community engagement. In the second section, there are numerous clinical approaches to working with trauma, whether with individuals or groups, highlighting the importance of creative and embodied approaches. In the third section, the focus shifts from client work to the impact of trauma on the practitioner, team, and supervisor, and the importance of creative self-care and reflection in managing this challenging field. This book will be useful for all those working in the field of trauma, whether as clinicians, artists, or social workers.

This is the first book to explore the numerous ways in which mobile technologies and social media are influencing our outdoor experiences. Across the fields of outdoor education, outdoor recreation and leisure, and nature-based tourism, the book considers how practices within each of those domains are being influenced by dramatically shifting interactions between technology, humans, the natural world, and wider society. Drawing on cutting-edge research by leading scholars from around the world and exploring key concepts and theory, as well as developments in professional practice, the book explains how digital technology and media are no longer separate from typical human and social activity. Instead, the broader field of outdoor studies can be viewed as a world of intertwined socio-technical assemblages that need to be understood in more diverse ways. The book offers a full-spectrum view of this profound shift in our engagement with the world around us by presenting new work on subjects including networked spaces in residential outdoor education, digital competencies for outdoor educators, the use of social media in climbing communities, and the impact of digital technologies on experiences of adventure tourism. This is essential reading for anybody with an interest in outdoor studies, outdoor education, adventure education, leisure studies, tourism, environmental studies, environmental education, or science, technology, and society studies.

Recent decades have seen an increasing interest in the healing and therapeutic potential of nature and interest in the potential of greencare interventions for the benefit of mental health. The field of nature based therapies is expanding in line with this interest. Nature and Therapy offers a unique contribution by outlining the specific processes involved in conducting counselling and psychotherapy sessions in outdoor natural environments. Central areas covered in the book include: A thorough exploration of the evidence for the psychological and healing potential of natural spaces; Developing a therapeutic rationale for nature based therapeutic work; Understanding the therapeutic relationship and the unique therapeutic processes that come into play in outdoor natural spaces; Translating indoor therapeutic work to outdoor contexts; The practicalities of setting up and running a therapy session outside of a room environment; Experiential exercises to explore the therapeutic potential of nature. Martin Jordan offers a clear outline of how to set up and hold a therapeutic session outdoors. Using case examples Nature and Therapy explores both the practicalities and the therapeutic processes that come into play in an outdoor natural setting. The book will be of use to counsellors, psychotherapists, arts therapists, psychologists and health professionals who are interested in taking their therapeutic work into natural environments and outdoor spaces.

Environmental Expressive Therapies contributes to the emerging phenomenon of eco-arts therapy by highlighting the work that international expressive arts therapists have accomplished to establish a framework for incorporating nature as a partner in creative/expressive arts therapy practices. Each of the contributors explores a particular specialization and outlines the implementation of multi-professional and multi-modal "earth-based" creative/expressive interventions that practitioners can use in their daily work with patients with various clinical needs. Different forms of creative/expressive practices—such as creative writing, play therapy techniques, visual arts, expressive music, dramatic performances, and their combinations with wilderness and animal-assisted therapy—are included in order to maximize the spectrum of treatment options. Environmental Expressive Therapies represents a variety of practical approaches and tools for therapists to use to achieve multiple treatment goals and promote sustainable lifestyles for individuals, families, and communities.

Following the acclaim for Learning Outside the Classroom in 2012, this latest book more deeply explains how well constructed outdoor learning experiences can benefit children and young people’s academic development and health and wellbeing. Outdoor Learning Across the Curriculum outlines the theory and practice to enable preservice and experienced primary and secondary school teachers to systematically incorporate meaningful outdoor learning opportunities into their daily teaching activities, in a range of environments and with diverse groups of students. Six of the chapters are substantially re-worked versions of the 2012 book, two are completely re-imagined, and four are entirely new. Topics for developing learning and teaching outdoors include: Inclusive educational design Learning for sustainability Community-based learning The role of student curiosity and wonder Evidencing learning Developing a whole school approach Place-responsive education Integrating digital technology With practical and engaging chapters containing aims, case studies, and guidelines for practice, this timely book provides teachers the tools with which they can integrate outdoor learning into their daily timetable. It will also be a valuable resource to other professions which use the outdoors for educational purposes.