Recreation becomes a clinical intervention here, with prescribed experiences and outcomes that build real, lasting confidence in girls who are facing severe anxiety.
All forms of recreation can be therapeutic. On its own, recreation can lift self-esteem, strengthen social connection, and ease anxiety, and those benefits arrive naturally, even when the activity is simply for enjoyment.
See Recreation Therapy in action at Cascade Academy.
Recreation Therapy takes those benefits deeper. It uses recreation as a clinical intervention, with prescribed experiences and intended outcomes, built around a clear, repeatable process.
We begin by assessing each student's needs, strengths, and clinical goals.
From that assessment, we create specific goals and objectives to address those needs.
We plan and carry out an activity designed to meet those goals through real, lived experience.
Afterward, we process the experience together, turning it into insight she can carry forward.
Each intervention moves through this cycle, and the cycle repeats and deepens across the program.
From the climbing wall to the trail, students practice new skills in the places that ask the most of them.
The program is built specifically for students facing severe anxiety. It moves in focused sequences, each one building toward a real test of new skills.
Each sequence runs eight weeks of evidence based Recreation Therapy interventions that build skills week by week.
The sequence leads to a capstone, where students practice new skills in a novel setting with novel challenges, and feel their growing self efficacy firsthand.
After each capstone, the student earns a metal medallion, a lasting reminder of what they accomplished in that sequence.
Then a new sequence begins, each with its own focus, its own challenge, and its own medallion.
Every sequence aims at a single clinical outcome: greater self efficacy, a student's belief and confidence in their own abilities.
As general self efficacy rises, research supports a reduction in the associated symptoms of anxiety and depression. Research also suggests that outdoor and adventure activities build self efficacy with an intensity that few other experiences can match.
Confidence to face hard things and keep going.
Higher self efficacy is linked with less anxiety and depression.
Adventure and mastery experiences build it powerfully.
Progress is tracked over time with the General Self Efficacy Scale (GSE), a validated 10 item measure.Schwarzer and Jerusalem, 1995.
The relationship research describes
Over time in the program
Conceptual illustration of the research relationship, not specific program outcomes.
Self efficacy is built through the activities, the group structure, and the order of the sequence. Themes add another layer. Each one gives a Recreation Therapy group its intention, structure, and depth.
Themes open the door for students to engage in therapeutic discussion, build new perspectives, learn through metaphor, and gain insight into their clinical goals.
The Recreation Therapist behind the program, in his own words.
Spencer grew up in the Midwest and moved west for school, where a love of the outdoors, mountain biking, climbing, skiing, and kayaking, led him to switch his major to Recreation Therapy.
Since graduating in 2020, he has used adventure based activities to teach in wilderness therapy, residential treatment, and beyond. Much like finding meaning in a good book, he helps teen girls discover confidence, real lessons, and mental health skills through experience.
Off the clock: rock climbing, mountain biking, and a new book.
Read full profileERP is our primary approach for anxiety and OCD. Students approach their triggers deliberately, like meeting a fear of heights on the climbing wall, and stay with the discomfort instead of avoiding it. With repetition, the brain's alarm grows quieter and the anxiety response fades.
A student approaches the trigger on purpose, in a planned and supported way.
They let the discomfort rise and pass, rather than escaping or avoiding it.
They return to the same trigger again and again, across sessions.
Repetition quiets the alarm. The anxiety response slows and begins to fade.
The anxiety response eases with each repeated exposure.
ERP is recognized as the first line psychotherapy for OCD. International OCD Foundation.
Recreation Therapy meets students in real settings, on the rock, the trail, the water, the snow, and in service to others, where new skills are practiced under real demands and confidence is earned, not assigned.
Heights, edges, and exposure, approached on purpose and at the student's own pace.
Climbing and rappelling turn a fear response into something a student can plan for, move through, and repeat until it loses its grip.
Distance, balance, and trust, built mile by mile in open country.
Time on the trail rewards persistence. Progress is visible, effort pays off, and confidence compounds with every ride.
Unfamiliar elements that ask for focus and a willingness to try.
New environments reset old assumptions. Cold water and steep snow ask students to stay present and adapt in real time.
Confidence turned outward, in work that helps others.
Service shifts the focus from self to others. Skills built on the rock and the trail become a way to contribute and connect.
Recreation Therapy is a clinical program. Students meet regularly with Recreation Therapists, follow a plan built for them, and see it woven into the rest of their treatment, so every experience stays specific, challenging, and tied to real clinical goals.
Strength, stamina, and skill, earned outdoors.
Sitting with hard feelings and moving through them.
Focus, problem solving, and a steadier mind.
Meaning, connection, and a sense of something larger.
Because the learning is experiential, what a student works through on the mountain is processed and carried back into the rest of her care.
What students say about Recreation Therapy, in their own words.
Recreation Therapy helped me learn how to manage physical sensations and high emotionsCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy has made me more flexible and comfortable doing things I don't want to do. I also get a lot out of it and feel proud of myselfCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy has given me a lot of happy memories, which I have not had in a whileCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy has helped me learn to allow myself to fail and be okay with itCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy helped me realize that I am able to do more than I thought I wasCascade Academy student
It builds confidence when something is hard and you figure out what works for youCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy helps me connect my therapy work into real life experience. It simulates real lifeCascade Academy student
Recreation Therapy helps me see the work I put into different aspects of my treatment all come together.Cascade Academy student
Cascade Academy is a residential program for teen girls facing anxiety, in Midway, Utah. Reach out and we will help you figure out the next step.
