Good programs require parents back home to undergo therapy. They provide workbooks to learn better communication tools and they teach moms and dads better ways to deal with the buttons their teenagers push. The Basics Upon arrival at Aspen, teens receive a physical and psychological evaluation and get assigned a therapist who will visit them twice a week in the field. Then it's time to ship out to a group already in progress. It's the instructors, the wilderness guides, who are in the field on a daily basis with teens, and it's this relationship that kids benefit from the most.
Teens live and work with a group of eight peers and two instructors who rotate in weekly shifts.
Here kids gain a sense of personal empowerment. The success of themselves and their groups depend on them. For most it's the first time in their lives to have such responsibility. Therapists trudge out to the woodlands twice weekly for intense one on one therapy with teens. Often, sessions takes place during hikes, mountain climbs, dinner preparations, or in the afternoon shade of a cottonwood tree.