Seminar
The Psychology of Adventure: Wellbeing in Challenging Environments
What do psychologists know about wellbeing in adventure environments? Join Emma and Nathan for an overview of the current ‘state of the art’ in research, covering wellbeing, mental health, personal growth and the power of natural environments.
Prof Emma Barrett is Professor of Psychology, Security, and Trust at the University of Manchester, academic advisor to Women’s Adventure Expo, a Chartered Psychologist and a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. Her research interests include the psychology of human performance and wellbeing under stress, including how people survive and thrive in challenging environments. She is co-author (with Paul Martin) of Extreme: Why some people thrive at the limits, published by Oxford University Press in 2014. She speaks about extreme environment research at a range of conferences and events to academics, businesses and the public.
Emma has recently completed projects on mental health and wellbeing in youth development projects for VSO, and on teamwork in youth adventure settings. She is currently working with Dr Nathan Smith and Olivia Brown on a range of projects, including experiences of transitioning to and from expedition life, team cohesion in expeditions, and wellbeing in extreme environments. Emma is particularly interested in research that helps people from all backgrounds get the most out of challenging outdoor experiences.
Dr Nathan Smith is a Research Associate in Psychology, Security and Trust in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester. His research interests centre on the psychology of performance and health in challenging and demanding settings, including individual differences in personality, values and motivation; stress, coping, emotion and mental health; and the process of transition, adjustment and reintegration following exposure to extreme settings.
Workshops
Wilderness Therapy – Journey Inside, Outside
In this workshop Julia will cover:
- Introduction to the wilderness therapy model – journey, metaphor, movement
- Metaphor brainstorm – idioms or expressions about mood/emotions/psychological state that use metaphors of nature/outdoors/landscape such as ‘an uphill struggle’
- Explanation of psychotherapeutic value of metaphors and link to outdoor adventures
- Watershed – area drained by River Avon. Also, metaphorically, a turning point. Pair discussion – walk and talk – a turning point in your life and how you feel about it
- Report back to group – what you heard, saw, felt when sharing
- Research and reading recommendations. Advice for accessing emotions in outdoors
Julia Gillick is a freelance expedition leader, stand-up comedian and wilderness therapy facilitator at ipse wilderness. With a background in teaching, mentoring and women’s empowerment work, she is passionate about wellbeing, nature and encouraging women to access the outdoors to support mental health. Julia loves travel, hiking and wild swimming and has recently acquired a labradoodle puppy who is being trained as an adventure therapy dog!
Realising your adventure potential
What are the instincts that first drew you to adventure? What does the happiest, healthiest and most sensational version of you look like? Unlocking these insights into yourself can help you overcome fears holding you back and reignite your spark for adventure. The workshop will include a discussion on the physical and psychological barriers to undertaking adventures, and a solution-focused approach to unlocking your motivation and confidence.
Mark Allen is the Learning Lead for Freedom of Mind and a Health Promotion Specialist.
Cat Taylor is a personal trainer and happiness coach in addition to her role as Head of Enterprise at OTR, the Bristol-based youth mental health charity.
Mark and Cat regularly set off on mini adventures together, with varying degrees of success. Their latest outing was scuppered by a leaky inflatable kayak; fortunately they discovered the breach before taking to the ocean! Cat’s current passion is for wild swimming, while Mark has swapped mountaineering for long-distance pub-to-pub hiking.
Framing Fear
Fear can be both psychologically and physically limiting. By understanding inhibiting fear more fully it can often help us to be less fearful and thus encourage us to adventure more fully as well as create resilience and confidence.
In the Framing Fear Workshop, participants will be presented with two scenarios and guiding questions to discuss. We will take a look at what happens to the brain during fear and we will introduce ‘fear zones’. There will a feedback session and a summing up.
Ruth Pickvance is a former mountain runner and international athlete. She is a positive encourager of women towards challenge, adventure, reflection and growth. Formerly working in United World Colleges and with a background in international education, Ruth now works with Harthill Consulting’s Leadership Development Framework and is also Director of Element-Active.
Emma Pugh is Director of Living Deliberately, a business supporting people and groups to better connect with themselves, each other and their wider community. She runs regular workshops on wellbeing and resilience for a variety of organisations. Emma is also an Iyengar Yoga teacher and teaches weekly classes in Abergavenny, Monmouthshire.
Collecting Psychological Data During Expeditions
Expeditions have a long history of contributing to the advancement of science. In this interactive workshop we will explore how you can build meaningful research into your own expedition activities. Together we will co-generate ideas that could be built into upcoming adventures. To support workshop discussions, we will draw from lessons learnt while completing research projects with the Crossing the Empty Quarter, SPEAR17 and North Pole EuroArabian expedition among others.
Dr Nathan Smith is a Research Associate in Psychology, Security and Trust in the Department of Politics at the University of Manchester. His research interests centre on the psychology of performance and health in challenging and demanding settings, including individual differences in personality, values and motivation; stress, coping, emotion and mental health; and the process of transition, adjustment and reintegration following exposure to extreme settings.
Olivia Brown is a 3rd year PhD student at Lancaster University. Her research focuses on understanding how teams are able to maintain cohesion and function effectively in difficult and challenging environments. Specifically, Olivia conducts research with emergency response teams and expedition teams. By comparing two types of teams, both of which work in dynamic, stressful conditions, she hopes to identify factors that facilitate and support effective teamwork.
Adventure and Wellbeing Event
13:30–17:00 Friday 5th October Watershed Bristol
