The 8th International Adventure Therapy Conference will be in Sydney, Australia this year, from the 28th of  August to the 2nd of September.

I will be attending to catch up with colleagues, meet new colleagues, learn new things about my field in the international sphere, and share a presentation on the work I have been involved with walking one to one with people over the last five years, entitled:  Moving Right Along – You and Me, and All of Cosmology.

I will also be co-facilitating the pre-conference workshop Bush Adventure Therapy 101.    https://internationaladventuretherapy.org/8iatc/8iatc-session/bat-101/

 

The abstract for my presentation:

Moving Right Along – You and Me, and All of Cosmology.

One to one walk and talk adventure therapy in the outdoors, observations from five years of practice.

For the past five working years I have been exploring a modality of adventure therapy whereby I have been working with clients one to one in outdoor settings in the environs close to our local capital city of Hobart in Tasmania. These environs range from paved walkways through to genuine wilderness that is part of our South-West Wilderness that connects with the edges of our city.

This paper gives a qualitative description and discussion of my observations from working therapeutically with my clients.

In this paper I look at the influences specific to the particular landscape that we choose to walk in for the ninety minute session time we usually share together. In conjunction with this I describe the therapeutic strategies I typically employ to effectively activate a session. A key decision in the choice of strategy is how well this strategy meshes with my approach in general, and the mood of the client, the landscape, and myself on a particular day.

I describe and investigate the confluences of city and bush, land and river, client and counsellor, that are the dynamic therapyscape of these AT sessions.

I look at this work through the viewpoints of mindfulness and emersion, and the ideas and reality of right action and the transition from innocence to wisdom, not knowing to maturation.

I have included a synopsis of my clinical findings.

My conclusions are a combination of qualitative observations, the clinical findings mentioned, and a curious unexpected thread whereby my learning’s from our collective history of successful therapies seem to come spontaneously into play.

The conference will be at Stanwell Tops, near Stanwell Park, New South Wales.

 

https://internationaladventuretherapy.org/8iatc/

https://internationaladventuretherapy.org/the-role-of-atic-in-international-adventure-therapy-conferences-iatcs/

Tasmanian adventure therapy leading the nation.

On Your Afternoon with Helen Shield.

Helping in the kitchen at the Tasmanian Men’s Gathering.

 http://www.abc.net.au/radio/hobart/programs/your-afternoon/mens-gathering/9907672

On the way to the Sydney National Men’s Gathering.

Walking and talking near Hobart.

We can walk and talk on the beach.

Adventure trip with young adults.

To talk about counselling/therapy options, and to make an appointment, please call me.

Nick Hall – 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday.

(You could send me a text message at other times)

Just come once if you want, to see if you like it, or to talk through whatever is on your mind at the moment.

First session is $60.00 (Ongoing or followup sessions are $120.00). Sessions are 1 hour to 1.5 hours so good value for your health dollar.

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.

I am a therapist who primarily values my clients lived experience as the basis for how they make sense of their world. This is a foundation idea in adventure therapy, person-centred counselling, and somatic psychotherapy (body centred therapy). These are the main informers of my approach. I am writing this first up because I am now going to mention a disorder that appears in the DSM5.

What is the DSM5??  It’s the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, Fifth Edition.  This is the classification and diagnostic tool published by the American Psychiatric Association (APA), for mental health presentations that the publishers think fit into an identifiable disorder. In the United States, and Australia, the DSM serves as the principal authority for psychiatric diagnoses. It is used by psychiatrists and psychologists, and referred to by other mental health practitioners. Treatment recommendations (as well as payment by health care providers) are often determined by DSM classifications.

What do I like about the DSM5? It contains sound researched information respected by peers. It is therefore a very useful tool.

What don’t I like about the DSM5? It can be accepted as a bible and therefore narrow and blinker thinking. It suggests that mental health and healthy relationships are a technical scientific matter, rather than a personal, uniquely individual and spiritual matter. It tends to produce labels which can create stigma and reduce ones self reliance and therefore self esteem.

So what’s this got to do with feeling sad in winter?

SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder, that’s what.

The name seasonal affective disorder refers to a type of depression which, in its most common form, strikes only in the autumn and winter months. Once spring and summer come along, those affected feel perfectly well and normal (There is a less common form where depression only occurs in the summer months).

Someone who may be affected by these winter time blues might be tired and lacking motivation and/or energy, feel anxious and irritable, have trouble getting out of bed in the morning and find they are eating more.

Check these links for more detail:

http://www.mydr.com.au/mental-health/seasonal-affective-disorder

http://www.mydr.com.au/mental-health/seasonal-affective-disorder

How can I help if someone comes to me feeling seasonally down?

Getting moving, having somewhere to go, being outdoors, most likely in the sunshine in Tasmania (over 80% of my walk and talk sessions have been in bright sunshine, year round), having someone who has an understanding of how you are feeling and what might work to remedy, having some personal time focussed on a solution, all of these things are evidenced to help move out of the depressed affect.

A regular personal walk mixed with a fortnightly professional walk and talk session through the time a client is affected is one approach I recommend. This is something I can support and provide.

Sunny days are better but do not necessarily wait for a sunny day, perhaps do it anyway.

 

To talk about counselling/therapy options, and to make an appointment, please call me.

Nick Hall – 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday.

(You could send me a text message at other times)

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.

 

Give me a call 0459413198 or email nick.creatinghappiness@gmail.com to have a chat about this workshop, or just go ahead and book with Kickstart Arts.

Dale and I having breakfast together in Sanur, Bali this year.

This is a post about what I did in my holidays.

I need to start this story with what happened forty years ago.

In 1979 I was a student at Rosny Matriculation College in Hobart. It is now just called Rosny College. I was in my second year. One of the subjects I chose to study was Australian History. Sounds like a recipe for success no? It was, but not the success I had planned. I passed the subject easy. It was as boring as batshit. For the young me not much of any great interest had happened since us Euros arrived, and it did not include aboriginal history, which was already emerging as very interesting to me.

Instead of attending classes I went to the beach with my friends. Regularly. I learned to surf. And I learnt to love and respect the ocean, and this situation has never dissipated to this day. Two of those friends I have surfed with ever since. Pete and Dale. We surfed a lot. We went on some surf trip adventures in our early twenties. We had fun, heaps of healthy fun. As life grew ever more complex surf trips became opportunities to catch up and have a surf together. Our relationships with each other, and the ocean, grew and changed with the seasons of life.

Now here we are forty years later. Time revealed that it was time to do another surf trip together. Time to see what we could do together. Time to take our long relationships a bit further. A risky thing to do, physically and emotionally.

Dale and I reading the morning paper in Cowes, Phillip Island, Australia in 1986.

Pete decided we should go to Lombok in Indonesia. We agreed. I sold some stuff to pay for the ticket. We got on a plane with carefully wrapped surfboards, boardshorts which we never wear in Tasmania, some faith in one another, and not much else.

In Lombok at Ekasbreaks.

Somehow, somewhere along the planning route some of our sons had become involved. This meant that we had Dale’s eldest son Ben with us. We had my son Elliot, who loves his surfing, staying home to concentrate on his final year design studies at the University of Tasmania, and we had Pete’s youngest son Sam meeting us in Lombok. Beautiful what starts to happen when we chose a big adventure.

Pete and I doing Mexican in Kuta, Lombok.

After landing we negotiated the the crowded chaos of Denpasar together. We surfed at Canggu and at Bingin. We discussed who would have what room, and we reminded one another to relax. It was hot in Bali. It was starting to get cold in Tasmania. It was a bit crazy. It was good.

We caught a plane to Lombok, and took some pretty bad roads to Ekasbreaks in the Southeast. We met Eka himself.

Dale and Ben, on our way to Inside Ekas.

Arriving at Jawbone, Bruny Island, Tasmania in 1985.

There is Inside Ekas and Outside Ekas. At Inside there was a softish left-hand peak on a deeper reef with about thirty local and international surfers enjoying the gentle waves. At Outside there was usually nobody, according to the locals. We surfed Inside in the morning for two hours, and then went to Outside. There we got onto some challenging, and very exciting waves. Almost too exciting. This is one of the reasons we came. We were having fun, some serious fun. A big bomb set came at the end of our session and washed me a long way over the reef on the inside of the break, and broke Pete’s board in two. He was not so happy. We struggled together back to our boat after it became clear that the Lombok captain was not concerned by Australian surf zone emergency signals.

Late that day Pete’s son Sam arrived. On the way, in the dark, his little bus had run over a reticulated python which stretched across the road, and then some, like a speed hump. “He’ll be alright” the driver had said “They are tough”. Not only are they tough, they have been known to swallow the small statured Lombok natives whole.

Inside Ekas, Lombok.

We moved camp to Grupuk which is further to the west on the south coast, as was our plan. Here we stayed at Bruce’s Hideout, the business of Bruce, a US expat with an Indonesian family, and a long history of surfing around the globe. His hideout was magnificent, and overlooked a bay chock full of surfbreaks. Heaven, with warm water. We got some more relaxed surfing done. And some good eating at the local warungs and restaurants. We were learning to travel with one another all over again. We were soaking in the sea, in the adventure and the golden moments of deep friendship.

 

The surfbreaks at Grupuk Bay. (We renamed Kiddies “Dale’s”.)

 

Dale on a wave at Outside Right, Grupuk, Lombok.

From Grupuk Sam left us, and we travelled over the island to Pamenang to catch a small boat to Gili Meno. This is a small flat coral atoll with a lagoon in it’s middle set up for visitors needing a quiet time. Perfect to finish our stay on Lombok. Cool plunge pool outside a substantial villa at a noticeably reasonable price. The business is run by a local family. We went snorkelling with turtles and pretty fish, we cruised around in the heat. There are no internal combustion powered vehicles on Gili Meno. Very relaxing, hot and peacefulish.

Pete with his son Sam.

Our taxi on Gili Meno.

After three more days we left our atoll and caught the inter island ferry back across the Wallace Line https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallace_Line and berthed nose first into the pier at Padangbai right as the sun had set. Both Lombok and Bali are huge volcanoes that have spewed out an island around them. As we approached Padangbai, with the sun setting, we could see the massive cone of Mount Agung sitting up well above the rest of the lands. The same happened from many views on Lombok, there it is Mount Rinjani. After stepping from the edging of the ferry onto the thin ledge of the edge of the pier we rescued our luggage and boards and were picked up by our preferred driver and back we went in the dark to Sanur where we had started.

Back in Tasmania the sea water temperature had dropped off a cliff, as it does sometime mid-May every year. It was good to be home, and it had been good to travel, an important journey complete, and stories to tell.

The view from Bruce’s Hideout.

Nick Hall Adventure Therapy

If you are experiencing:

Relationship issues.
A challenging life experience.
Personal grief.
Anxiety or depression.
A workplace issue.

Or any other matter you would like support with,
give me a call to make a time for a walk and talk session.
Emotional safety and confidentiality assured.

nickhalladventuretherapy.com/who-is-adventure-therapy-for/

Message me or ring 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday. You can text or email me at other times, my email is nick.creatinghappiness@gmail.com

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.

 

 

Last October we took our boat and my floating office Water Is Life out of the water for four weeks annual maintenance and some repairs. The photo above was taken yesterday. Six months later and she is still on the hard. This is the story of what happened.

There is another story of what happened to need to take her out of the water at this time specifically, and what happened when we were taking her out of the water, but these are stories for another time.

The list of works was fairly short, clean the hull, replace the key that had dislodged out of the propellor shaft, renew the drinking water tank, and do a bit of painting and this and that. Oh, and yes, a bit of work to the mast step, damaged whilst lifting her from the water and lowering her mast, but as I said, these are stories for another time.

 

The list of jobs was covered quickly, and because it was summer, and because we live by the ocean, we decided to put in a mooring nearby, and do some sailing in our bay, Frederick Henry Bay.

Getting approval for a mooring position in Tigerhead Bay below our house was easy enough, even given that the coordinates we gave to the inspector put him in the carpark of the local supermarket. He said he knew a good spot, a little shallow, but good. Water Is Life is a shallow draught boat.

It was also easy enough to find the local mooring guy, and get him onboard to put the train wheels and big chains I had purchased from here and there into the water in the right spot so we could put Water Is Life back in the sea, and tie up.

And this is about where we began to come to grief, unawares to us at this early stage.

Do you think we could find our mooring guy again? No, we couldn’t. I rang his phone. I called into his home. I left him some messages. I spoke with his dad. He had gone, disappeared into summer. Maybe he was working, or fishing somewhere. Maybe drinking beer, with his friends. Whatever, he was nowhere to be found.

Perhaps we could find someone else to put the things in the sea? Perhaps we could find another mooring spot, a better mooring spot. Plan B.

In the meantime we would get everything ready, and raise her mast, ready for the oceans, and a summer of sailing.

Dropping the mast had been simple enough, though a little damaging to the boat, and our sense of how competent we were. Raising is somehow the reverse, this time without the damage.

It took five more months to raise her mast. To work out how to do it, and to do it. It took three more months to find a new mooring, in a much better spot yes, but did the new fella come and service our new well sited and fabulous mooring. No, he did not. Not until it was too late, and the money had been spent on other summer things. Things we did instead of sailing.

Not that much grief, only some complications, and some missed summer days sailing in Frederick Henry Bay, and maybe further out even, into Storm Bay.

But that was not to be the finish of it.

As we inched closer to the possibility of having Water Is Life back in the salt, there was to be another mishap, more dangerous, and more expensive by far, that those chastisements encountered so far.

We had towed our big caravan up the east coast to Douglas River for the Australia Day weekend. We spent five fine days there with family, surfing and wandering and swimming, sitting with each other on camp chairs, warmed by the sun. Our diesel Jeep towed it there, and our diesel Jeep towed it back.

It was to be the last thing our diesel Jeep ever towed.

We discovered weeks later that the genuine Jeep tow hitch had torn from the light steel subframe, cracked over time by three hundred thousand kilometres of travelling, now finished, and useless, the trip to The Douglas being it’s last as a tow vehicle.

Our diesel Jeep is how we launch our boat.

It’s a funny feeling,  grief,  all of a sudden it can just be there, bigger than what we thought.

Next weekend my good friend Michael, who worked out how to raise the mast again, and my good friend Pete, who owns a Toyota Landcruiser, are joining us at the Tigerhead boat ramp to raise Water Is Life’s mast, and put her back where she does her best. And we will sail to Hobart, for a winter of sailing on the Derwent River.

To talk about counselling/therapy options, and to make an appointment, please call me.

Nick Hall – 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday.

(You could send me a text message at other times)

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.

I recently co-facilitated this workshop in Katoomba, New South wales.

The workshop provides an introduction to bush adventure therapy history, definitions, research evidence, theories, principles and practices. It overviews Australian BAT programs, includes the range of target groups, models and practice frameworks that exist, and has a closer look at some key program examples. Commonalities and diversities are discussed, along with an introduction to ethics, safety and the use of therapeutic frames.

Next one is:

https://internationaladventuretherapy.org/8iatc/8iatc-session/bat-101/

I caught the train from Katoomba to Sydney to connect with my flight to Hobart. On the platform I was introduced to a friend of my friend Dan. His name is James.

We chatted for the two hour trip about our different adventures. James asked me about my therapy work, and about the client groups I had worked with over the last twenty years. The youthful young people of Project Hahn, the complex needs children of Complex Care, the torture and trauma surviving refugees with the Phoenix Centre, the Tasmanian aboriginal community, our mums and fathers and sons at Community Rites of Passage, and now my walk and talk clients. After a few good stories James asked if I had written a book. Yes, I said, but at the moment it is still a bunch of notes waiting for bookdom to come. James has written a book. James, with his friend Justin Jones, has paddled a kayak from Australia to New Zealand, and they have also skied to the South Pole together.

When I thought we had talked enough about what I had been doing I said to James, “You’re the guy that paddled to New Zealand.” to which he replied “Yes”                                  I said “That was a stupid thing to do.”                                                                                            He smiled broadly and we continued our conversation, swapping stories about his big adventures across the ocean and the ice, and my big adventures on the same oceans, with my adventures being within a relatively easy return to land. It highlighted what is true, the scale of what is a big adventure is measured by oneself.

The two hours on the train seemed to be gone in one. I had thought I would be looking out the window and listening to some music, instead I got to speak with James.

 

To talk about counselling/therapy options, and to make an appointment, please call me.

Nick Hall – 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday.

(You could send me a text message at other times)

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.

On a recent trip to the Blue Mountains (west of Sydney, Australia), I went on a canyoning exploration with two friends.

We went to a place called Dry Canyon. I had not been canyoning before so we decided we would take it easy even though my companions were experienced canyoners.

We travelled through bush land to the entrance.

As we went further into the canyon it became more and more like a cave, with just shafts of sunlight shining down through the narrow gaps at the top of the arching walls.

At the other end of the canyon we quite suddenly exited onto the Blue Mountains escarpment, looking out from high over the valley below. I am sensitive to heights so I sat down to take in the huge view, whilst my companions climbed a nearby rock to heigthten their experience.

We travelled through a new part of the canyon on our way back. Some large trees had managed to grow upwards from the canyon floor to the open sunlight.

At the other end of the track we were reunited with Dan’s classic 1982 Landcruiser Troopcarrier. Nick, Pete and Dan looking pretty pleased with ourselves.

 

To talk about counselling/therapy options, and to make an appointment, please call me.

Nick Hall – 0459413198 – 9am to 5pm – Monday to Wednesday.

Hobart, Tasmania.

Counsellor Hobart Tasmania. Counselling Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapist Hobart Tasmania. Psychotherapy Hobart Tasmania. Therapist Hobart Tasmania. Counselling outdoors. Bush Adventure Therapy. Somatic Psychotherapy. Psychology. Nature Contact. Life skills. Coaching. Walk and Talk. Psychodynamic. Mindfulness. NDIS.