Clearing up the Confusion over Outdoor Therapies: How They Fit With, Overlap, or Relate to One Another

Today, outdoor therapies are practiced in many nations around the world, with a broad diversity of philosophies, theories, methods, functions, and formats (Norton et al., 2015). The field of therapy within the outdoors has been much discussed and debated within the experiential profession (Itin, 1998). The disputes and deliberations have centred on topics such as the difference between therapy and therapeutic, primary or adjunctive treatment, licensed clinician or outdoor leader, and more. These disagreements have given several forms of outdoor therapy: adventure, wilderness, outdoor behavioral health care, bush, bush adventure, forest, nature-based/eco, land-based healing, horticultural, animal-assisted, adapted/inclusive, and eudaimonic. Outdoor therapies can be arranged with respect to one another according to the varying amounts of challenge, nature, and psychotherapy. This essay considers these three key dimensions before discussing the 10 or more well-known forms of outdoor therapy.