AABAT Forum
Hey friends,
Leaving Dungog was very bittersweet. I’m happy to be continuing on to the next phase of my journey, but I’m so sad to leave the people and home I’ve grown to love deeply. I do plan on coming back to Dungog though before I leave Australia, so it’s not goodbye forever. I’m currently hanging out on my bunk at the Australian Association for Bush Adventure Therapy (AABAT) forum, and figured I’d write a little update. This forum has been incredible, it feels like summer camp for adults where everyone is really smart and has lots of interesting things to say and is very friendly. I’ve met, ate meals with, and played kanjam with some of the most well-regarded researchers in this field and they’ve been so welcoming to me. I’m the only American at this conference (I’m not including one guy because he moved to Australia like 7 years ago) and it’s so fun talking to everyone I meet about why I’m here. They keep asking “you came all the way to Australia just for this?” and I’m like, “well, not exactly but also I definitely factored that in”. Everyone is really interested in my fellowship year and what I’m doing, and also why I’m doing it. I’ve had tons of conversations with people just about how we see the world and our place in it, and it feels refreshing and empowering.
The workshops and talks I’ve been to have been very helpful for me to figure out just what BAT looks like to different people and how it works, and what research informs it. I’ve appreciated the amount of people presenting who begin their talks with “…so because I was disillusioned with the field of psychology because of….(there’s lots of issues with the field of psychology in research and it’s demoralizing, frankly)” and they bring a new, fresh perspective into my eyes about the ways that therapy can be practiced and helpful to people struggling with mental health issues. That doesn’t mean it’s just them doing whatever they want, most of it is evidence-based, but they’re not kidding themselves about the actual, important flaws that psychology research has that have led to important consequences about how therapy has worked in the past that isn’t necessarily helpful, and could be harmful. At one of the talks I went to today, the presenter started with an example of a previous “evidence-based” treatment: At one point in time, a woman was on a boat that was traveling down a river. She fell off the boat for whatever reason and began to drown. When they found her, the boat crew tried to save her but had no idea what to do. Someone had the bright idea of taking a bellows (to add bursts of air to fires) from the boat and sticking it up her butt and blow air up it, and voila! She came back to life. This is where the phrase “to blow smoke up someone’s ass” comes from. After that incident, the local government placed boxes with bellows inside every few hundred meters along the river in order to prevent more deaths from drowning, because they were following the evidence-based treatment. Moral of the story: just because something has evidence backing it up (with many methods being flawed, too specific to generalize, etc.) doesn’t mean it is or will always be the right thing. Obviously this is a very complex topic and I’m not saying that we should all just throw science out the window, but damn psychologists, you gotta loosen up. Psychology tries too hard to be a hard science when it doesn’t need to and it shouldn’t.
I guess I just ranted up there…Marianne, if you’re reading this, you’ll be proud to know that your philosophy of science class has really been stuck in my head over the years, and I can rant about logical positivism with the best of them now.
Anyways, I also went to a talk about Complex Trauma Focused Adventure Therapy by Graham Pringle, which was incredible. I learned about different people that are doing “walk and talk therapy” in their organizations, including someone in Tasmania. I asked him how he gets around the confidentiality issue with therapy, because by bringing it outdoors it’s more likely there are more people around so you can’t promise confidentiality, and he said that he’s never ever had an issue with it because he and the client just decide to pause if a person walks past and pick up the conversation where they left off when the person is gone, and besides there aren’t too many people around the nature reserve where he walks anyways. I also went to a talk about Narrative Walks, basically bringing narrative therapy into the outdoors, which was super interesting because my philosophy thesis was on narrativity and its role in therapy.
Every time I turn around there’s a new person for me to talk to that has their own passion involving mental health or outdoor ed. or adventures (or any combination of the three), and I’ve never felt so accepted by such a big group of people. People are curious about me and my life experiences, and I’m curious about theirs. I got to officially meet the people I’m going to be spending the next month with, and they’re wonderful! I also have many new contacts and offers for places to stay all around Australia. I think I may even head to New Zealand for a bit before going to Norway because of all the great organizations I’ve been connected with through this forum… but who knows! It’s all a great adventure. Sending love to you all.
-Andi
Leaving Dungog was very bittersweet. I’m happy to be continuing on to the next phase of my journey, but I’m so sad to leave the people and home I’ve grown to love deeply. I do plan on coming back to Dungog though before I leave Australia, so it’s not goodbye forever. I’m currently hanging out on my bunk at the Australian Association for Bush Adventure Therapy (AABAT) forum, and figured I’d write a little update. This forum has been incredible, it feels like summer camp for adults where everyone is really smart and has lots of interesting things to say and is very friendly. I’ve met, ate meals with, and played kanjam with some of the most well-regarded researchers in this field and they’ve been so welcoming to me. I’m the only American at this conference (I’m not including one guy because he moved to Australia like 7 years ago) and it’s so fun talking to everyone I meet about why I’m here. They keep asking “you came all the way to Australia just for this?” and I’m like, “well, not exactly but also I definitely factored that in”. Everyone is really interested in my fellowship year and what I’m doing, and also why I’m doing it. I’ve had tons of conversations with people just about how we see the world and our place in it, and it feels refreshing and empowering.
The workshops and talks I’ve been to have been very helpful for me to figure out just what BAT looks like to different people and how it works, and what research informs it. I’ve appreciated the amount of people presenting who begin their talks with “…so because I was disillusioned with the field of psychology because of….(there’s lots of issues with the field of psychology in research and it’s demoralizing, frankly)” and they bring a new, fresh perspective into my eyes about the ways that therapy can be practiced and helpful to people struggling with mental health issues. That doesn’t mean it’s just them doing whatever they want, most of it is evidence-based, but they’re not kidding themselves about the actual, important flaws that psychology research has that have led to important consequences about how therapy has worked in the past that isn’t necessarily helpful, and could be harmful. At one of the talks I went to today, the presenter started with an example of a previous “evidence-based” treatment: At one point in time, a woman was on a boat that was traveling down a river. She fell off the boat for whatever reason and began to drown. When they found her, the boat crew tried to save her but had no idea what to do. Someone had the bright idea of taking a bellows (to add bursts of air to fires) from the boat and sticking it up her butt and blow air up it, and voila! She came back to life. This is where the phrase “to blow smoke up someone’s ass” comes from. After that incident, the local government placed boxes with bellows inside every few hundred meters along the river in order to prevent more deaths from drowning, because they were following the evidence-based treatment. Moral of the story: just because something has evidence backing it up (with many methods being flawed, too specific to generalize, etc.) doesn’t mean it is or will always be the right thing. Obviously this is a very complex topic and I’m not saying that we should all just throw science out the window, but damn psychologists, you gotta loosen up. Psychology tries too hard to be a hard science when it doesn’t need to and it shouldn’t.
I guess I just ranted up there…Marianne, if you’re reading this, you’ll be proud to know that your philosophy of science class has really been stuck in my head over the years, and I can rant about logical positivism with the best of them now.
Anyways, I also went to a talk about Complex Trauma Focused Adventure Therapy by Graham Pringle, which was incredible. I learned about different people that are doing “walk and talk therapy” in their organizations, including someone in Tasmania. I asked him how he gets around the confidentiality issue with therapy, because by bringing it outdoors it’s more likely there are more people around so you can’t promise confidentiality, and he said that he’s never ever had an issue with it because he and the client just decide to pause if a person walks past and pick up the conversation where they left off when the person is gone, and besides there aren’t too many people around the nature reserve where he walks anyways. I also went to a talk about Narrative Walks, basically bringing narrative therapy into the outdoors, which was super interesting because my philosophy thesis was on narrativity and its role in therapy.
Every time I turn around there’s a new person for me to talk to that has their own passion involving mental health or outdoor ed. or adventures (or any combination of the three), and I’ve never felt so accepted by such a big group of people. People are curious about me and my life experiences, and I’m curious about theirs. I got to officially meet the people I’m going to be spending the next month with, and they’re wonderful! I also have many new contacts and offers for places to stay all around Australia. I think I may even head to New Zealand for a bit before going to Norway because of all the great organizations I’ve been connected with through this forum… but who knows! It’s all a great adventure. Sending love to you all.
-Andi
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