Continuum Coaching provides life coaching for graduates of wilderness therapy programs.

Our coaches have guided thousands of students through the challenges of wilderness living, and our post-wilderness program helps students face the challenges of living at home or independently.

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Our Approach

We focus on developing the individual’s functional ability in their normal environment. Our expectations adjust to meet our clients where they are and our interactions are designed to advance our client’s natural abilities. We promote stability in relationships, fluidity of thought, and continual growth through personal awareness.

What makes our approach special is our acknowledgement that life in a program is quite different than life at home. Our “step down” model is based on several years of trying different approaches until finding the process that serves our clients best while they transition from a program setting with a comprehensive structure to a home environment with a very loose structure.

Our Experience

We have a combined experience of over 40 years working with youth in programs and schools, and we can provide the knowledge and know-how to help your son or daughter succeed in transitioning home from the wilderness.

Over the years of working within many of the most successful wilderness programs (Aspen Achievement Academy, Second Nature, Passages to Recovery, Wilderness Quest, Outback, Lone Star, Open Sky) we have experienced the power of wilderness therapy. Within a wilderness program’s controlled structure it is remarkably easy for a skilled team to create predictable and dramatic change in a student.

The major advantage of the wilderness setting is that it is so different from the home environment. The student has to think in new ways to deal with challenges. The major weakness of wilderness is the same. Transferring new knowledge and behaviors to the home environment is difficult for the individual because being at home is so different from being in the wilderness, and because the student already has a knowledge, behavior, and thought set to revert to at home.

The Transition Period

Perhaps you can relate: Imagine you have traveled to a Spain for a couple months and have learned enough Spanish to exchange pleasantries, order food, and find a bathroom. How long does your new Spanish ability last when you return home? How long will you think in Spanish without reinforcement?

The experience of participating in a wilderness program is much like traveling to a foreign country with a native guide. Culturally different expectations shift thoughts and behaviors. In programs we reinforce these new thought structures through daily repetitions. All effective programs do this. It creates a phenomenon that we call Gyroscopic Thought.

As long the program spins the top the gyroscope is stable. Much as a toy gyroscope will spin for a while balanced on a string or stand a student will continue with their new thought pattern even after the program stops providing the external spin. This is a post-program honeymoon period, and when the momentum starts to decrease the student either figures out how to translate their experience and maintain the benefits, or they wobble around wildly until they topple.

Our role as coach is facilitating the process of developing a pattern of thought and behavior that suits the individual client in his/her real environment and that he/she can sustain without external support.

Our Program

The Continuum Coaching program is comprised of four components that span three months. The model steps the client down from the intense structure of the wilderness environment to independent life-planning and execution. Each week of the process has a programmed focus that is adapted to the individual.

Read more about our program, or contact us to set up an initial consultation.