Doug Nelson, an early pioneer in developing what became Wilderness Therapy programs, shared his experiences about the early days of Wilderness Therapy for adolescents with talk show host Lon Woodbury on L.A. Talk Radio's Struggling Teens weekly interviews.
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 wilderness therapy industry grew largely out of academic experiments at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, in the late 1960s, when Larry Dean Olsen offered a course in wilderness living. Modeling the popular Outward Bound program, he took troubled students into the desert to learn survival skills, noticing improvements in behavior and academic performance. One of his students was Doug Nelson who felt an immediate affinity for the 30 day survival program. It reminded him of his childhood in a Southern Utah farm community, where he had spent a considerable amount of his youth, teenage years, and early adulthood hiking in the back country. One thing led to another and within two years, he became the director of the BYU Survival Program.
During the BOSS program, students on a 21 day expedition would come home transformed, much more appreciative of their parents and compliant with their wishes. Consequently, after he sold the BOSS program, Nelson created a new program for adolescents. This was the Wilderness Academy, which combined the 21 day program with a therapeutic component to help integrate the lessons learned in the wilderness with everyday life. Therapists in the field would draw parallels between a child's wilderness experiences with what was going on at home. Parents were also encouraged to spend three days with their child at trail's end, and they were even reimbursed part of the costs if they were willing to make this small commitment.
Nelson shared stories about some of the therapeutic experiences that emerged for children and their parents. Often, it was found that the child was acting out because of issues related to the parents. For instance, in one case, the parents were thinking of a divorce. In another case, the father was too busy with his work as a lawyer to spend 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 wilderness therapy industry grew largely out of academic experiments at Brigham Young University, in Provo, Utah, in the late 1960s, when Larry Dean Olsen offered a course in wilderness living. Modeling the popular Outward Bound program, he took troubled students into the desert to learn survival skills, noticing improvements in behavior and academic performance. One of his students was Doug Nelson who felt an immediate affinity for the 30 day survival program. It reminded him of his childhood in a Southern Utah farm community, where he had spent a considerable amount of his youth, teenage years, and early adulthood hiking in the back country. One thing led to another and within two years, he became the director of the BYU Survival Program.
During the BOSS program, students on a 21 day expedition would come home transformed, much more appreciative of their parents and compliant with their wishes. Consequently, after he sold the BOSS program, Nelson created a new program for adolescents. This was the Wilderness Academy, which combined the 21 day program with a therapeutic component to help integrate the lessons learned in the wilderness with everyday life. Therapists in the field would draw parallels between a child's wilderness experiences with what was going on at home. Parents were also encouraged to spend three days with their child at trail's end, and they were even reimbursed part of the costs if they were willing to make this small commitment.
Nelson shared stories about some of the therapeutic experiences that emerged for children and their parents. Often, it was found that the child was acting out because of issues related to the parents. For instance, in one case, the parents were thinking of a divorce. In another case, the father was too busy with his work as a lawyer to spend 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.
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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.
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