Beyond the Classroom: How Adventure Therapy Training Transforms Future Counselors

While counseling students typically gain field experience in an office setting, PSU's Adventure Therapy course offers something unique. As the only counselor education program in the region offering hands-on adventure therapy training that integrates both therapeutic and wilderness skills, the two-credit summer elective is designed for all fitness and outdoor experience levels. 

For students like Makena Buser, the course’s design for all experience levels was key. A rising third-year Clinical Mental Health Counseling graduate student, Buser had never been on a backpacking trip. As a child, they'd spent endless hours outdoors going on frequent little adventures but, over time, had lost touch with that part of themselves. 

Arriving at the Timothy Lake trailhead with a group of students they didn't know that well and a 28-pound backpack felt more than a little scary.

"There was definitely fear and anxiety and intimidation," Buser recalls. "But there also was a level of excitement and determination — like, I'm doing this, and I'm proud of myself that I'm doing this."

Adventure Therapy — a form of psychotherapy that emerged in the 1960s — uses nature, movement and outdoor experiences to support emotional growth and healing. As awareness of the field’s impact has grown, it’s become more essential for counselors to receive specialized training to thoughtfully and safely guide this kind of work.

"We've intentionally designed this experience to be as accessible as possible," says Deanna Cor, associate professor of counseling and one of the course instructors. "This year, we had a lot of students who have never backpacked before and a couple who had never camped before."

Theory Meets Trail

The Adventure Therapy course combines a Saturday lecture covering therapeutic adventure foundations with a three-day, two-night backpacking experience at Timothy Lake near Mount Hood. This year's group of 14 — including 11 students, two faculty and one alumni clinician — tackled a 15-mile loop that included a section of the Pacific Crest Trail.

Throughout the experience students kept personal journals and facilitated therapeutic activities designed for the trail. They also participated in group processing exercises each evening. When they had to adapt their plans due to slower hiking pace, equipment failures or unexpected trail conditions, students learned to pivot their therapeutic goals in the moment, mirroring the flexibility required in clinical practice.

Personal Growth Through Challenge

For Buser, the biggest breakthrough came in learning to move from fierce independence to healthy interdependence. Through small steps — asking an instructor for help adjusting a backpack strap, sharing gear with their tent partner and, by the final day, trusting their hiking group enough to request a trail break — Buser discovered the power of both giving and receiving support.

"I like things that I feel good in. I like things that I'm practiced in," says Buser. "I knew there were going to be some things on this trip that I had never done before, that I would probably really suck at. And so I did those things. I didn't do them perfectly, but I did them and I leaned in, and there's a feeling of accomplishment that really comes with that."

Lujein Alkreidi brought different concerns to the trailhead. As a mother of two from Syria and former refugee, Alkreidi had signed up as a rare opportunity to do something just for herself. Though she loves nature, she'd never ventured beyond afternoon picnics and worried about leaving her young daughters.

Over three days of learning to carry a heavy backpack, eat dehydrated food and navigate the outdoors, Alkreidi discovered unexpected peace. "I was grounded and I was relaxed," she reflects. "I didn't have the same anxiety I have at home. Usually I have thoughts like a train — one goes, then comes another one. I didn't experience that on the trail."

When her group facilitated a meditation exercise on the lake shore, the outdoor setting transformed the therapeutic experience. "I could really separate myself from anything else," she remembers. "The nature smell, the breeze, the sound of the leaves — all of that helped a lot."

The experience opened possibilities for her future practice with Arabic-speaking immigrants and refugees. "We don't have this in our culture,” she notes. “But this class opened my mind to think about doing it for groups in the future."

Professional Skills in Natural Settings

What sets PSU's adventure therapy field experience apart is integrating "hard skills" — wilderness safety, environmental assessment, first aid — with therapeutic "soft skills." Most adventure therapy programs require separate guides and therapists, but faculty members Cor and Lindsay Vik bring both skill sets.

"There's something about marrying the physical with the emotional in real time that provides huge therapeutic benefits," says Cor. "Students constantly navigate feeling authentic and present, then remember this is a class with a grade attached."

This tension becomes part of the learning. When equipment fails or weather changes, students practice real-time adaptation they'll need with clients. Evening process groups focus on immediate experiences — frustrations with group pace, pride in accomplishments, discoveries about personal limits.

Vik notes that the immersive format also breaks down traditional classroom barriers, allowing for authentic community building that's difficult to replicate in academic settings. 

“Something that felt very salient was the experience of actually getting to know each other,” she says.” Students develop genuine empathy by experiencing vulnerability alongside their peers and instructors.

Accessible Outdoor Therapy Training

For counseling students seeking to expand their therapeutic toolkit beyond traditional approaches, adventure therapy offers transformative experiential learning. The course demonstrates that effective therapy can happen anywhere — on forest trails, around evening campfires or when clients step outside their comfort zones.

"This trip showed me that being uncomfortable and doing activities in that discomfort creates connections and builds skills that are really hard to replicate in an environment where you're comfortable, sitting in a chair with air conditioning," reflects Buser. "The environment pushes you into a different zone that creates really cool opportunities for learning."
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COUN 507: Adventure Therapy is offered every summer and is open to counseling students at all levels, program alumni and community members. Visit our website for more information about our Counselor Education program and upcoming course offerings.

Photography by Elayna Yussen