Home » blog » Outdoor Therapy Benefits for Womens Treatment

Outdoor Therapy Benefits for Womens Treatment

Outdoor therapy rehab, also referred to as adventure or wilderness therapy, is an approach that uses the great outdoors through activities such as backpacking, hiking, rope courses and boating or canoeing to help individuals working through recovery from drug and substance abuse.  There are women’s rehab centers that have specifically crafted outdoor programs that cater to the treatment needs of women going through recovery.  This offers women with a world of opportunities that they can utilize in their recovery.

There is a need for gender-specific programs at rehab centers because women and men deal with alcohol and drug addiction differently based on their triggers, biological responses, and underlying issues.  Here are the benefits of outdoor therapy rehab when treating women addicts:

Enjoying nature at Outdoor Therapy Rehab

When enrolling in a women’s treatment center, you will be provided with the opportunity to get away from the busy polluted urban world and have the chance to enjoy nature.  Studies have shown that the healing force of nature has a positive effect on one’s mental health and mood.  The outdoor environment is peaceful and gives women the chance to get out of their head and forget all the pressures and stresses and the impact that these may have on their substance or alcohol recovery.

Engaging in teamwork

The types of activities carried out in outdoor therapy are those aimed to teach practical lessons to the women and have them engage and interact with each other during these activities.  Teamwork is, therefore, a huge part of this as they work in groups to go through the obstacle and rope courses and hikes.  They work together to problem-solve and overcome physical and emotional challenges.  They can then take the lessons learned from these experiences and apply them to their sobriety challenges and daily relationships.

Gender-specific meetings

Women’s programs generally place a higher emphasis on body image, self-esteem, the formation of relationships that are healthy, and developing good social behaviors.  The issues tackled during these sessions in the outdoors include depression, self-care, and trauma.  Experiential therapy is used with women being grouped and going out on excursions and coming back to discuss their experiences.  This women-only setting provides them a setting to explore who they are physical, mentally, spiritually and emotionally.  This is essential especially for young women and teens.  

Supportive interactions at outdoor therapy rehab

The support groups that comprise of women only provides a caring, non-confrontational, and non-judgmental environment where they can express their fears, struggles, lessons from life, and stories of other women who can understand and relate to them.  This provides a platform to correct irrational thought and behavior and enhance growth.  The relationships formed during these interactions will provide a lifeline of support for the clients through their journey to sobriety.

Encourages women to get out of their comfort zones

The endless cycle that is addiction can become a comfort zone when the women are in it no matter how destructive it may be.  Being in a different environment that is unfamiliar to the addict gives them the chance to look in on their addiction from the outside and they can see it for what it truly is.  This then brings all sorts of emotions to the forefront that include fear and anxiety that can then be addressed as they pop up and the women can then be equipped with coping skills that they can apply in their recovery.

Ability to understand consequences

These programs enable women to understand that the actions have consequences both in the natural environment that they are in and in their real lives.  As they face these consequences in real time, they can learn to be personally and socially accountable for their actions and see themselves as being self-reliant.

Avenue for social outlets

Women who engage in outdoor therapy can discover new interests that they can spend their leisure time on instead of engaging in substance abuse.  These healthy pastimes provide them with a constructive way to manage the pain, triggers and emotional trauma that they must deal with in recovery.
These are some of the benefits women addicts can get from outdoor therapy at women’s rehab centers.  The rehab centers are tailored specifically to meet the needs of women addicts.  

For More Information Please Call Us at : (877) 868-5730.