304: Outward Bound: The Wartime Origins of Wilderness Therapy
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
Release Date: 03/04/2026
316: Autism Outdoors: How Nature Helps Autistic Children and Families Thrive
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
What happens when a therapist who has spent years working with autistic individuals suddenly becomes the parent of an autistic child? In this episode Will talks with Damon Bryan, co-founder of about how his son's autism diagnosis transformed both his personal life and his clinical perspective. Damon shares his journey from outdoor and residential mental health programs to creating a nonprofit that helps autistic individuals and their families experience the outdoors through hiking, rafting, paddleboarding, family retreats, and community events. Together, Will and Damon explore what it means...
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315: 10 Years of Change: How Confluence Behavioral Health Evolved
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
How does a program built around relationships, adventure, and the outdoors evolve over ten years while staying true to its mission? In this episode, Will sits down with Foster Post, co-founder of as the Vermont-based program celebrates its 10th anniversary. Foster shares his journey into outdoor mental health treatment and reflects on the lessons learned from building a small, owner-operated program during a time of unprecedented change. From its early years featuring multi-day wilderness expeditions to its current model serving young adults through residential treatment, adventure-based...
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314: Nature Deficit or Mental Health Crisis? Scott Shepherd on Reconnecting Young People with the Outdoors
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
What happens when a generation grows up more connected to screens than to the natural world? In this episode, Will sits down with outdoor educator and founder Scott Shepherd to explore the growing disconnect between young people, nature, and one another. Drawing from more than 15 years of experience in outdoor, environmental, and experiential education, Scott explains why time outside is no longer just recreation—it has become an essential component of mental health, emotional regulation, resilience, and healthy youth development. Scott shares his own transformative journey sailing around...
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313: Can Wilderness Therapy Be Proven Scientifically? Rob Meltzer on Research, Critics, and the Future of the Field
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
What if wilderness therapy has been helping people heal for a long time—but the field never fully understood why it works? In this episode Will sits down with Rob Meltzer, founder of the new Wilderness Therapy Institute. Rob explains why he believes wilderness therapy may function as a form of “metabolic health treatment” and shares groundbreaking efforts to study how sleep, movement, sunlight, nutrition, circadian rhythm, inflammation, and extended time in nature impact mental health. The conversation explores emerging research in metabolic psychiatry, biological mechanisms of healing,...
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312: Healing Trauma in Adolescent Girls: How ROOTs Transition Blends Nature, Family, and Residential Care
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
What happens when a clinician decides that traditional residential treatment isn’t enough for adolescent girls struggling with trauma? In this episode Will talks with Kami Black, founder of in Park City. Founded during the uncertainty of the COVID pandemic, was built around a bold idea: combine the healing power of nature, intensive family systems work, and trauma-informed residential care into one integrated model for adolescent girls ages 15–18. Kami shares how her own experiences, years in residential treatment, and deep commitment to trauma work shaped a program focused not just on...
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311: 30 Years Later: How Summit Achievement Was Built to Last
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
Thirty years later… What happens when one of the earliest outdoor behavioral healthcare programs refuses to follow the trends of the field? In this episode Will sits down with CEO Nichol Ernst to reflect on the 30-year evolution of — a program Will co-founded in 1996. Together, they explore how Summit survived massive shifts in the wilderness therapy world: the rise and fall of therapeutic boarding schools, the influx of venture capital into behavioral healthcare, the smartphone era, COVID, and growing public controversy surrounding outdoor treatment. Rather than chasing trends, Summit...
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310: How Venture Capital Grew Wilderness Therapy… and Then Ran Away
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
What happens when a field built on healing becomes shaped by money? In this episode, Will revisits a 2020 exploration of the business of wilderness therapy—tracing its evolution from nonprofit, mission-driven roots to a rapidly expanding, privately funded industry. From early non-profits programs to the rise of private-pay models in the 1980s and the explosive growth fueled by outside investment, this episode examines how financial forces didn’t just support wilderness therapy—they fundamentally shaped its direction, priorities, and structure. And what happens when that money leaves? In...
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309: The First Therapist in Wilderness Therapy: Dr. Madolyn Liebing and the Clinical Origins of the Field
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
How did wilderness therapy become outdoor behavioral healthcare—and who made that shift possible? In this re-released and historically significant episode Will sits down with Dr. Madolyn Liebing, widely considered the first licensed mental health professional to work in a primitive skills wilderness therapy program. As a co-founder of Aspen Achievement Academy in 1988, Dr. Liebing helped transform early outdoor programs from survival-based experiences into clinically grounded treatment—introducing psychological assessments, treatment planning, and family systems work into the wilderness....
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308: The Evolution of Wilderness Therapy: L. Jay Mitchell, SUWS, and the Early Days of Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare Treatment
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
Who really built wilderness therapy—and how did a lawyer with no formal clinical training help shape one of the most influential models in outdoor mental health treatment? In this episode Will revisits a powerful 2019 interview with L. Jay Mitchell, founder of SUWS (School of Urban and Wilderness Survival). Mitchell shares his unlikely path—from a difficult adolescence and early inspiration from Kurt Hahn, to law school, military service as a JAG attorney, and ultimately creating one of the first wilderness therapy programs in the United States. This episode explores the early roots of...
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307: From Prison Inmate to Wilderness Therapy Pioneer: The Story of Larry Wells
Stories from the Field: Mental Health and the Outdoors
Wilderness therapy didn’t start with therapists—it evolved with the help of an ex-con who found his heart of service to others in recovery. In this episode Will shares the powerful story of Larry Wells—an early pioneer whose lived experience shaped the foundations of early wilderness therapy programs. From his teenage years in jail to his exposure to the outdoors in a federal prison camp, Larry’s journey reveals how connection, purpose, and challenge became the roots of a new approach to helping struggling young people through the outdoors. Through the creation of Expedition Outreach...
info_outlineOutward Bound is not about therapy. It began during World War II as a response to a fear that young sailors were not resilient enough to survive the sinking of their ships. Founded to build endurance, discipline, and leadership under extreme adversity, Outward Bound introduced the expeditionary model — challenge, crew, service, and solo — long before those elements became staples of wilderness therapy programs.
In this episode of Stories from the Field, Will traces the history of Outward Bound from Kurt Hahn’s philosophy and exile from Nazi Germany to the rise of Outward Bound USA and its lasting influence on modern wilderness therapy. Along the way, we explore early research with adjudicated youth, partnerships with mental health institutions, and the professionalization of outdoor leadership through figures like Paul Petzoldt and the founding of NOLS. If you want to understand the origins of wilderness therapy and outdoor behavioral healthcare, you must understand Outward Bound.
This podcast is supported by White Mountain Adventure Institute (wmai.org), offering adventure inspired retreats for men and facilitated by Will White.