Fotis Panagiotounis1 & Yannis Theodorakis2
1KETHEA Education Department, PhD cand. University of Thessaly, Greece, Contact details: panagiotounisfotis@gmail.com
2Yannis Theodorakis, Professor of Sport Psychology, University of Thessaly, Greece
Abstract
The purpose of this study is to broaden the perspective of addiction counseling by proposing an alternative therapeutic approach, the Adventure Therapy Methodology. Adventure Therapy (AT) is a therapeutic intervention that is widely used in a wide range of mental health disorders either as a primary or as a complementary therapeutic tool. AT differs from other psychotherapeutic approaches in having its structural characteristics as it occurs in the natural environment. The purpose of the study was to evaluate an AT pilot project designed as part of the project: Reintegration Through Sport / Erasmus + Sport (www.rtsport.eu). The main purpose of the project was to evaluate the application of AT methodology in the addictions treatment. The AT pilot program involved 14 members of KETHEA’s treatment programs. Two measurement tools were used to evaluate the pilot program: The «Participant Evaluation of Instructor and Program Quality» and the «Adventure Therapy Experience Scale».. The results of the evaluation showed that the pilot program had a positive impact on the participants’ lives, providing further support for the effectiveness of the AT methodology in the addiction field.
Keywords: Adventure Therapy, Addiction Counseling, Adventure Activities
