Adventure Therapy Alongside Other Mental Health Provision: Exploring Integration and Staff Perspectives of an Intervention

Abstract

This thesis considers how therapeutic use of adventurous activity might best be implemented alongside community-based mental health support. The first chapter reports the findings of a scoping review that explored how existing literature describes the integration of adventure therapy interventions with community-based mental health support. The review found mention of diverse approaches to integrating adventure therapy in the available literature, but very little evidence regarding the effectiveness of the approaches described. Some approaches integrated adventure therapy by involving participants’ families and community services before, during, and after standalone adventure therapy interventions. Other approaches embedded adventure therapy within community-based provision. The review yielded a conceptual map of integration approaches that might be used to guide future research and inspire clinical approaches.

The second chapter explores a specific example of adventure therapy in detail. The chapter describes an interview-based qualitative study that examined the experience of participating in an adventure therapy sailing voyage from the perspectives of early intervention in psychosis service staff who participated in the voyage alongside their clients. Five themes relating to the experiences of voyage participants were identified: sense of camaraderie; exposure to challenge; reactions to routine; discovering new experiences; and impacts after the journey. In addition, themes that related to the experience of participating in the voyage for services as a whole were also identified: appetite for similar activities; future participation made harder; and future participation made easier.

The third chapter discusses the implications of the preceding two chapters for future research and theory development, as well as for clinical practice. The chapter concludes with reflections on the process of carrying out the research documented in this thesis, contextualising these reflections in terms of the author’s clinical and intellectual development.

Date of Award	26 Sept 2024
Original language	English
Sponsors	Bangor University
Supervisor	Lee Hogan (Supervisor) & Mike Jackson (Supervisor)