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Reply to "Therapeutic Wilderness Schools - Any Insights?"

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My child was kicked out of PHP due to being too aggressive.  He was moved to inpatient where he was stabilized with different medications and then released.  The PHP program would not take him back.  So in the end he was not able to do the work to get better.[/quote]

Aggression and elopement history were the reasons that so many forms of treatment were not available to my child including most RTC programs. [/quote]

So why would wilderness therapy be appropriate for that kind of severe behavior? What kind of practices do they have to manage them? What's the argument for a kid with such severe behaviors going to a LESS regulated, less professionally trained program ... that takes place in the wilderness away from medical care and oversight? [/quote]

I can answer this and the answer sucks.  Non hospital inpatient programs  routinely refuse to accept kids who they deem too difficult and hospital inpatient programs will only keep kids long enough to patch them up. So if you have a kid who is released from inpatient and recommended to need further treatment literally ALL other programs can refuse to accept. So the kid goes without any care until they attempt suicide again. And repeat…. Wilderness programs will accept kids that  other programs will not accept.  The land of wilderness programs is populated by desperate families with no options.  If there were better regulated insurance covered programs that would accept these kids, then parents would not be looking at wilderness. [/quote]

that explains why they exist but certainly does not reassure me about their quality! a for-profit industry that targets parents who feel they have no other options, often with money to pay (like Paris Hilton’s family). and fwiw, in my family, wilderness therapy was not some kind of last resort after everything else. my parents went straight to it for my 13 yr old brother with friends they disapproved of and some alcohol issues - there was no prior therapy, treatment, nothing. Just straight to Montana. [/quote]

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