Our Philosophy
Evoke’s Wilderness Therapy works with the outdoors, reaching deep and accomplishing growth that just can’t be achieved in a therapist’s office or hospital setting. Shorter-term intensive programs bring participants to a better understanding of themselves, their true nature, the importance of relationships, and the value they and others bring to every situation. Guided by therapists, these purposeful activities and experiences are customized to the needs of each person, delivering a direct application to life back at home, school, or work.
Through Evoke podcasts, blogs, books, support groups, Wilderness programs, and short-term intensives for adults and teens, you and your loved ones can achieve growth through difficult times.
Treatment Philosophy
Our mission is to provide the highest level of personalized therapeutic care with a focus on the whole-health of clients and families with extensive family support and resources.
Evoke accomplishes this mission by following our 3 Founding Principles:
- Provide the best possible treatment for each client’s whole-health with comprehensive family support
- Transform continually as a program and company
- Use our inherent connection to the outdoors to facilitate lasting change
Whole-Health Treatment
Whole-health treatment includes a client’s emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual wellbeing. Supporting the mind, body, and spirit connection is essential for long-term sustainable growth and transformation. Clinical research shows that diet, nutrition, exercise, and spiritual connection enhances and maintains positive psychological changes, elevates moods, and increases confidence. Visit our Clinical and Health & Wellness pages for more information on how Evoke treats the whole person.
Comprehensive Family Support
Evoke offers comprehensive family support while your child is in the program and after. Visit the family involvement page to learn more.
- Parent Coordinators
- Parent Mentors from Program Parent Alumni
- Interactive Portal for parents of Wilderness Therapy participants
- Weekly Parent Phone Calls
- Twice-Weekly Webinars
- Archive of Webinars and Podcasts
- Parent Workshops
- Parent-Child Phone Calls
- Family Visits to the Field (mid-program, end of program, and family walkabout)
- Parent support groups
- Parent and Family Intensives
- Adventures
- Coaching
A Transformative Program and Company
This is a three-fold principle.
1st – We are committed to evoking change in our participants to become their healthier and stronger selves.
2nd – We are dedicated to continually innovate and grow to meet the changing needs of our participants and employees; to continually evolve, discover new approaches, and seek more effective ways for participants and their families to experience long-term change.
3rd – We are committed to being a conscientious company, making the health and well-being of our business, employees, and communities a top priority. This commitment includes supporting employee health through opportunities for personal growth and professional development, by contributing to our local and larger communities and being a green company, including printing most of our marketing material on 100% recycled material produced by wind power. We also purchase local organic foods whenever available, and use socially conscious companies like Sherpa Adventure Gear, and SunRidge Farms.
Our Connection to the Outdoors
We believe an individual’s inherent connection to the outdoors is essential and plays a central role in the therapeutic process. At Evoke Therapy Programs, the wilderness provides The Right Environment, Unforeseen Learning, and A Reclamation of Self.
The Right Environment
Evoke Therapy Programs utilizes the wilderness environment to remove everyday life distractions and emphasize the individual’s strengths and potential.
The immediacy and clarity by which nature delivers action-consequence lessons provide our participants with non-biased and direct feedback regarding their behaviors and choices. Skilled Field Instructors and Therapists highlight boundaries and facilitate logical consequences that mirror the lessons essential to a healthy life.
The wilderness environment ensures participants focus their energy on confronting their issues, and reveals behaviors that parallel those that led to their enrollment at Evoke.
The group culture reinforces honest engagement, accountability, and healthy communication and behavioral patterns while discouraging past escape routes such as shutting down, running away, or other maladaptive responses.
Unforeseen Learning
Through Evoke Therapy Programs, daily life in the wilderness lends itself to metaphor and experiential learning, a highly effective means of learning. For instance, the individual who resists advice from parents regarding the need to prepare for school might listen to a Field Instructor talk about the necessary prep tools needed to make a fire in order to cook supper.
The defense of the conscious mind does not easily recognize the layers of the metaphor, thus the lessons are more deeply embraced. The group culture also becomes metaphorical when the participants begin to cultivate similar types of relationships, symptoms, and patterns they had at home. Field Instructors and Therapists use these experiences to help the participants see their issues from a fresh perspective and ways to change behaviors using these new insights and skills.
A Reclamation of Self
Nature both humbles and exalts the human spirit like nothing else. Many who participate in Evoke Therapy Programs struggle with poor self-esteem and carry a defeatist attitude.
Living in the wilderness can seem daunting at first; but nature, being the “unmovable force,” demands that participants access their innate ability to work through discomfort and thrive.
From a place of compassion and care, Field Instructors and Therapists reinforce this ability through reassurance and support. “I know it’s tough and I know you can do this,” becomes a mantra, spoken and unspoken, heard throughout a participant’s journey at Evoke. Where participants previously cultivated shrewd avoidance behaviors, which atrophy the muscles of adaptation, resilience, and healthy
coping, they now thrive with feelings of confidence, competence, and strength. Old feelings of victimhood, self-loathing, and apathy are replaced with renewed self-efficacy, which is carried into other areas of life and is a hallmark of our participants’ accomplishments at Evoke Therapy Programs.
