Graduation Year

2022

Document Type

Campus Only Senior Thesis

Degree Name

Bachelor of Arts

Department

Psychology

Reader 1

Stacey Wood

Reader 2

Theodore Bartholomew

Abstract

Wilderness therapy programs (WTP) can improve mental health and coping skills for youth far from the familiarity of home. After these adolescents have exhausted traditional talk therapy, targeted CBT therapy, and drug regimens, parents may choose to send their children to these programs as an additional treatment strategy to attempt to help teenagers change their maladaptive behaviors. This study aims to prove the efficacy of Wilderness therapy programs (WTP) and provide analytic evidence that children who struggle from depression will attend WTP and see a decrease in their depression and an increase in therapeutic alliance and resilience. Each week for six weeks, participants in both groups (those receiving WTP and those who are not receiving any treatment) are administered the same study materials to assess how each of the variables: time, resilience, gender, therapeutic alliance, and depression have changed since the start of the study. Participants in both groups receive different measures, and after the six weeks are over, the waitlist control group will receive treatment if the first group shows that WTP was effective. The intended sample size for the proposed study is 120 participants ages 12 to 17. The anticipated results of this multiple linear regression should indicate that both resilience and therapeutic alliance will increase while depression decreases. The experimental group will demonstrate a significant decrease in their depression scores throughout WTP therapy compared to the waitlist control group, and the regression coefficient group will show an increase in resilience scores compared to those in the waitlist control group.

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This thesis is restricted to the Claremont Colleges current faculty, students, and staff.

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