James Neill - Bad Ass of the Month

James Neill is a leader in the field of experiential therapy and outdoor education. James coordinates the Outdoor Education Research & Evaluation Center and is the editor of the Australian Journal of Outdoor Education. No other organization integrates holistic innovative activities with modern education and counseling as does the outdoor education field. James believes humans have evolved through intimate connections with nature. He contends that experiences of consciousness have moved away from a direct encountering with nature. The direct experiencing of nature, especially the elements, offers the potential for profound alterations of both inner chemistry and consciousness. He describes his philosophy as a psych-evolutionary theory of outdoor education. Much of James’ work is applicable to our mission and modern psychotherapy. Without James' efforts in compiling and making accessible, research in outdoor education, searching this body of knowledge would be painstaking. If you’re interested in this area, James has a Bad Ass website

Caroline Peterson - Distinguished Contributor of the Month

Caroline Peterson’s contributions have been instrumental in the development and advocacy of Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy (MBAT). She is an active practitioner and researcher. What we find especially bad ass about MBAT is the integration of several experiential, ancient wisdom practices: Art, Meditation, and Group Work.

Caroline is the study director for an investigation examining the effects of mindfulness-based art therapy for cancer patients. She received a $400,000 grant from the National Institute of Health (NIH)/National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) for this investigation. Caroline hypothesizes that MBAT will help people with cancer “Live Better with the Uncertainty of Cancer” by significantly improving health-related quality of life, a reduction in stress-related symptoms, and enhanced coping ability. To learn more, click on Mindfulness-Based Art Therapy for Cancer Patients.

Matt Claybaugh - Distinguished Contributor of the Month

Matt Claybaugh, Ph.D. completed his doctorate in American Studies from the University of Hawai`i, in 1998. The title of his dissertation was "America and the Sea: Maritime Traditions and Personal Transitions" which focused on the influence of the ocean and voyaging as a change agent in people's lives. He has been employed by Marimed for the past ten years as a counselor, coordinator, consultant, director, VP. and for the past two years as president and CEO.

The Marimed Foundation is a Hawai`i-based public charity that uses activities on and around the ocean to help Hawai`i's young men make the often stormy passage through adolescence. The Marimed Foundation offers a wide range of services to at-risk youth and their families, including a residential treatment program that combines the discipline of boat building, sailing, canoe paddling, and shipboard living with more traditional therapy and family counseling.

Matt will be presenting at this year's Association for Experiential Education Conference in Norfolk, Virginia. From the conference agenda, his workshop reads as follows:

# 266 The Sea-Change, Experiential Voyaging
Matt Claybaugh
This workshop explores the introspective and retrospective side of voyaging in an experiential context by considering the concept of the sea-change. Using experiential theory and models it seeks to uncover the elemental components of personal change and growth found in sea narratives. The central hypothesis is that sea narratives provide unique evidence of an evolving experiential understanding of personal growth and self-perception throughout American history. In testifying to personal growth, these narratives represent an American celebration of the experiential ideal that through personal testing in natural settings one might achieve profound self-understanding.

Dr. Claybaugh made the following comments to PsychSymposium.com:

“I have been involved in water activities my entire life, surfing, diving, sailing, fishing etc. I grew up on the island of O`ahu on the east side Kailua and Kane`ohe. I went to college at Northland College in Northern Wisconsin, an environmental liberal arts school where 60% of the graduates major in outdoor education. I participated and worked in the field of special populations outdoor ed. for years and came home to Hawai`i as a high school history and social studies teacher in 1987. When I was in grad school at UH in American Studies, I began to work with Marimed Foundation, who with the use of our initial Sailing School Vessel, TOLE Mour, were providing voyaging experiences to special needs students. Over the years, we have refined the voyaging model to become more and more therapeutically designed.”

”The basic component is the building of teams, crews and watches, who sail the vessel(s) under the tutelage of the professional crew and treatment staff aboard. My dissertation 'The Sea-Change in American Sea Narratives', became a cornerstone of how we both perceive of and design transformational elements in our program, particularly in the voyaging component. It explored the relationship between personal narratives of voyaging and basic experiential theoretical models (Outward Bound's for example). As I followed several voyagers autobiographical narratives I was able to identify significant similarities to those courses designed to elicit participant's personal growth and those ‘transformations’ individual voyagers speak of in their writings.”

”Marimed's various programs try to design these elements into the ‘voyage’, which include in our model 1) Welcome Aboard/Preparing for Sea, 2) Departure/Commitment to the Voyage, 3) Challenge/Windward Leg, 4) Mastery/Wayfinding, and 5)Reflection/Storytelling. These phases of a voyage or individual watch are design elements that we feel encourage growth especially when drawn out or focused upon by trained staff.”

”We currently are doing research through an independent evaluator for 3 federal grants we receive, most of the current data is raw and we have not completed a final report, the first of which should be completed around September 2005. The work of running these types of voyaging experiences for High-Risk youth takes most of our efforts. I would like to have more time to reflect upon and write of the almost ten years of experience we have in this area, as time allows I plan to do just that.”

”Please explore our website at www.marimed.org, most of the basics of our design can be found there.”

Jeannette Waegemakers Schiff, PhD - Distinguished Contributor of the Month

Jeannette Waegemakers Schiff, PhD is a researcher and assistant professor of Social Work at the University of Calgary. She will be speaking at the Fourth Annual Canadian Conference on Spirituality and Social Work that takes place from May 26-28, 2005 at King's College, University of Western Ontario, London. The title of her workshop is, "The Impact of the Sweatlodge Ceremony for Mental, Emotional, Physical and Spiritual Healing".

From the conference agenda, Dr. Schiff’s workshop reads as follows:

Traditional healing as "practices designed to promote mental, physical, and spiritual well-being are based on beliefs that predate western European, 'scientific bio-medicine'. Recognition of the importance of traditional healing practices for native peoples (Royal Commission on Aboriginal People (1996)) has accelerated a reversal of the historic efforts to eradicate native traditions and created an upsurge of interest in traditional healing practices, including the sweatlodge ceremony. Increasingly sweat lodges are incorporated into healing programs that serve aboriginal people. Sweat lodge ceremonies have also been compared to group therapy processes (Colmant and Merta, 1999; Walkingstick-Garett and Osborne, 1995), although these comparisons minimize the importance of the spiritual element of sweat lodge ceremonies. Despite the fact that traditional healing practices have been valued by native peoples for as long as oral tradition has been alive, there is virtually no research on the efficacy of these methods. This presentation describes the results of a pilot study on the impact of the sweat lodge ceremony on the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual domains of individual participants. The study format includes both quantitative and qualitative components. Results indicate that there are measurable changes in spiritual, emotional and physical well-being.

When asked about her pilot study, Dr. Schiff made the following comments:

We just recently completed this pilot study on the impact of the Aboriginal sweatlodge ceremony. The data was collected from a series of 10 sweatlodge ceremonies at one site. There were 42 participants - 70% Native or Métis, from the general community. We were looking at whether we could measure a change in well-being as defined in aboriginal terms - physical, mental, emotional or spiritual. Our measures were taken immediately pre and post sweatlodge ceremonies from volunteers who naturally came for individual reasons.

Although we observed some instances of marked positive change in participants’ pain, most people were in general good health and thus the measures of physical well-being did not change significantly. However, the emotional and spiritual measures showed that participants were more alike on factors that reflect interconnectedness and feelings of belonging. This is important in that in an Aboriginal worldview, healing begins with the spiritual dimension. There also appears to be greater cohesion among participants in post sweat responses - i.e. respondents were more alike, despite the fact that many attended different ceremonies. This suggests an underlying spiritual component that transcends individual ceremonies. We plan to expand the study to a multi-site longitudinal investigation - the primary objective is to explore measurable effects of Aboriginal sweat lodge ceremonies on targeted groups of people.