Trails Carolina Uses Wilderness Therapy to Promote Success

Trails Carolina is a wilderness therapy program that combines the healing power of nature with structured activities that help with self-awareness, self-confidence, nurturing life skills, and strengthening family relationships.

What is wilderness therapy?

You may already know about the important benefits of how the outdoors can help create happy memories and family bonding. With outdoor experiences in mind, Trails Carolina’s wilderness programs use the outdoors to therapeutically help their students.

The program activities—including clinically focused games, expeditions, equine programming, and classroom work—are carefully chosen to help the students express their feelings and learn positive values and behaviors.

For example, working with horses teaches empathy and self understanding. It helps promote valuable teaching moments that help start a deeper and more meaningful reflection on similar real-life situations.

What are the benefits of wilderness therapy?

Wilderness therapy can help teens and families learn how to deal with difficult situations, complicated emotions, and address harmful behaviors. Students may struggle to understand and articulate what they think and feel in conventional outpatient therapy sessions. Families may also have a hard time connecting and communicating amid the hustle and bustle of everyday life.

Trails Carolina provides a new environment to see things differently and experiences that help students learn valuable life principles. Emotional and social benefits include:

Emotional Clarity

Wilderness activities help heal emotions and process life more healthily. Helping you understand yourself, think of positive ways to manage struggles you may have, and learn how to express these feelings in a non-confrontative way.

Trails Carolina has programs where participants can discuss and process what they have felt and learned during outdoor activities and expeditions to support their self-awareness and emotional clarity journey.

Applying these insights to real-life experiences at school, work, and home helps them live happier.

Stronger Relationships

Trails Carolina aims to teach compassion and communication. The activities help bring family members closer together, heal relationships, and teach positive social behaviors that teens can use in school and their other social circles.

Sense of Responsibility

Wilderness activities often include outdoor and leadership skills. What students learn in the wilderness experience can be applied to many challenges they may face in the future.

Stronger Confidence

Overcoming challenges gives students self-confidence and courage. They discover new skills and talents, and the truth is that they are often stronger and smarter than they believe.

They learn to trust themselves, and most of all, they learn to trust others—and believe that they will find support and help along the way.

Renewed Commitment to Physical and Emotional Wellness

The Trails Carolina experience can motivate teens and families to practice its principles at home: spend more time outdoors, schedule family time, get regular exercise or physical activity, and be more attuned to one’s feelings and reactions to stress and conflict.

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Who can benefit from wilderness therapy?

Any family could benefit from wilderness therapy because of the valuable life lessons and stronger relationships it helps build.

However, it is particularly beneficial for people going through emotional challenges, such as anxiety, depression, trauma, etc. In these cases, wilderness therapy can complement formal clinical therapy or other support programs.  

Studies have shown that wilderness therapy can help teens who are resistant to seeking help. While it shouldn’t replace counseling or other ways of helping, it can provide that “eye-opening” experience to help them take the first step towards change.

How does the Trails Carolina staff support their student’s journey?

The Trails Carolina staff provides guidance and encouragement. They help everyone process their experiences and broaden their perspectives. Their multi-disciplinary backgrounds also create a very holistic approach to wilderness therapy. Every person is unique, and the staff at Trails draws from their experiences and expertise to tailor the experience to those needs.

Trails Carolina reviews and experiences

Trails has helped hundreds of teens and families improve communication, reverse negative thinking and behavior patterns, and help heal relationships. Trails Carolina reviews praise the supportive staff, the nurturing environment, and the strong community. 

For families in conflict or teens wrestling with problems and challenges, Trails Carolina can be both a place to heal, learn and grow. Life is a journey, and it can often feel overwhelming—but the Trials Carolina program provides the skills and support to learn how to survive and even thrive.