Trip to New Vision Wilderness
by
The Price Group - Educational Planning Services
May Peach and Louise Slater
As we arrived at
New Vision Wilderness,
each of us was outfitted with the outdoor gear we needed to go into the
woods. That was a real experience for us Southern girls! Getting the
gear on correctly nearly made us break out into a sweat. Once we had on
all of the many layers, we looked and felt like astronauts! May learned
quickly that there was an art to walking in the snow. Drew Hornbeck,
the executive director, told May to walk as if she was determined to get
somewhere fast. She resembled an elephant as she stomped through the
snow, but she didn’t fall down!
It was beneficial hearing from several of the young people about the different aspects of the program.
New Visions
does not use a level system but rather a relationship model. The
adolescents are asked to find something they are passionate about, and
are expected to develop a Mastery Project around this new passion. One
girl taught herself sign language because she had stopped talking due to
her trauma. Another girl taught herself how to play the trumpet because
she only played string instruments. We visited one camp site and
learned how maple syrup is made. Louise and I had our first ride on a
snow mobile – it was thrilling!
Louise sat on a log that day with another
educational consultant and a young man who had been adopted from
Guatemala. He talked about his drug use, his anger, and his fear of
abandonment by his adoptive family. At first, he was very fearful about
his new surroundings. Slowly he began to learn to explore his emotions
and feelings.
New Vision Wilderness is unique in many of its approaches to therapy. Most young people who come to
New Visions
have experienced significant loss, trauma, or have some attachment
issues. This young man told us about a process he was involved in called
“Brainspotting”. He had been taught how to relax and breathe deeply.
He then was told to follow a moving object with his eyes until the
therapist told him to pause. He was able to identify and release some
early fearful memories; however, what was most significant was that he
told us he had woken one day with a very strange feeling. When he was
able to process the feeling with his therapist, he was surprised that he
could label the feeling as joy! Since then, when he focuses his eyes on
that certain spot and breathes deeply on his own, his experiences of
joy become stronger and longer. A therapist, as well as one of the
owners, Steve Sawyer, explained to him that new neuro pathways were
being strengthened during these times.
The original plan was for all of the educational consultants to
return to the wilderness to the next day to see a girl’s group. However,
once we had learned about Brainspotting from the young people, we had
lots of questions about
EMDR,
Brainspotting,
and Core Resourcing. Steve Sawyer explained the concepts and showed us
segments of two
YouTube videos. One of these was from Dr. David Grand
(
YouTube Parts 1 2 3).
At dinner, the staff at
New Visions
asked us if we would like to go back to the feel or stay at the lodge
and learn more about Brainspotting. It was unanimous – all of the
consultants preferred to learn more about Brain Spotting. To be honest,
most of us had real concerns that this process seemed a little “out
there” and “new age” so we wanted to understand more about how it
worked. After further explanation, the clinical director, Liz Deardorff,
got ready to demonstrated brain spotting, and Louise volunteered –
intrigued by the report from the young man the day before.
Here are Louise’s memories from Brainspotting:
I was asked to sit quietly, close my eyes, and begin to relax
while focusing on my breathing. Since I had been practicing a few
beginning sessions of breathing through a yoga program on my Ipad, this
part seemed easy. Then Liz asked me to tell her a place on my body that
felt calm and neutral. She then asked me to find another neutral point (
a resource point). She asked me to draw a line of energy between these
two points – could I feel the energy? Liz assured me that my body knew
how to do this. Could I tell her a color I was seeing? We continued
along this line until I had several resource points and lines of energy.
We made a grid of sorts from point to point in my body, which is called
your sacred place ,or the point where all of the other points
intersect. Strangely, I felt tension between my left shoulder blades.
When I was asked to slow down and become more aware of my surrounds, it
felt as if I was coming out of a very relaxed, safe deep place. I could
feel energy vibrating though me and my hands were tingling almost as I
had an electrical current running through my body. It was so much
energy, in fact, that in order to relax (and I still had tension in my
left should blade), I dropped into my new yoga pose.
After a short while, Steve Sawyer led me to his office to try a
short relaxation procedure that involved focusing on that pain point,
breathing, and following my eyes through a few movements. While the
entire experience was a little bizarre for me, it is very clear to me
that the staff is moving energy and unblocking energy, similar to a
massage or intense exercise. Could I see sending one of our clients with
trauma or attachment issues to New Visions for wilderness therapy?
Absolutely! It is unlike any other wilderness therapy in the use of
brain spotting and trauma work.
We left
New Vision Wilderness
with a deep respect for the work they are doing in the field. On our
long van ride to Chicago, we stopped at the headquarters for
New Vision and
met some of the office staff. It was great to meet them since these are
usually the people we talk to on the telephone when we call with a
referral.
A big thanks to everyone at
New Vision Wilderness for hosting us! We truly enjoyed our visit!
