In-house courses:
climbing therapy in psychotherapy & experiential education
Since 2019 we offer in-house courses in your country, in your facility on demand! This will be possible in two different ways: as an exclusive course and in another version open to other clients. The latter version will be put on display at this very space so it can be easily booked. The courses will be held in English with a maximum number of 14 participants.
The contents of the in-house trainings
will be tailored to your needs. On the one hand we have developed a broad variety of exercises in both bouldering and rope climbing that could be used likes modules and you choose the ones you are interested in. On the other hand based on your special interest we together can develop new usages of climbing. Some examples of our modules are: pair exercises, exercises to train the executive functions, developing mindfulness through climbing. It’s also possible to book a program to serve the purpose of working with people suffering from depression, anxiety, obsessive compulsive disorder, personality disorders etc.
Who can attend the training programs?
Since our beginnings in 2003 we have good experiences with a broad variety of participants coming from different professions: psychologists, psychotherapists, doctors, teachers, outdoor trainers, social workers, physical/occupational therapists or nurses working in psychiatry or climbing instructors working in the field. If you have any doubts, wether your background is sufficient or if the program fits your needs contact us. Concerning your climbing skills: it is highly recommended that you have already experienced climbing and are able to climb and belay toprope and lead. But it´s not required that you have a professional training as a climbing instructor (in the long run we recommend to attend such a training).
Some possible moduls for your in-house training
Identification and discussion of “experiential qualities”. We tried to identify all different aspects what climbing set´s in motion in people´s minds like: trust, fear, self esteem, self efficacy, planning (training of the executive functions), borders (to deal with them, to go over them sometimes), performance (who much pressure do I put on me in climbing concerning my level of performance), body (e.g. in the sense of relaxation and tension, where do I feel emotions in my body, breathing), social aspects, attention, enjoying/happiness and some more. For these aspects we tried to find settings, which trigger them in a person in a group. So we discuss who to choose the right exercises.
Discussion of different mental disorders like depression, anxiety disorder, OCD, ADHD, personality disorders e.g. BPD in there relation to climbing: what can we expect when people with this disorders climb with us and who can we use climbing (the direct experience but also social factors) to influence these disorders through climbing.
We identify typical settings in the field of experiential education, mostly for the work with social organizations but also in the field of profit oriented firms (teams).
Level of verbal interventions: we tried to put all aspects of verbal interventions on a scale and discuss these in relation to people´s professions because we have participants from various fields (like social workers, doctors/m.d., psychologists, experiential educators, climbing teachers and so on) and needs of the clients or situation of a therapeutic groups.
Exercises for „pairs“ (in the sense of two people working togehter), exercises for teams (one of our favorites: creating and setting up a boulder) and combined with all the exercises: the possible usage for certain aims or goals and the possible debriefing methods.