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Baldwin, Persing, and Magnuson (2004) report that with all the research to date and the numerous reports of positive outcomes there is still little understanding of the underlying processes influencing these positive outcomes. This has caused extensive discussion concerning why adventure therapy appears effective in treating a multitude of DSM related mental disorders in children, adolescents, and adults (Blanchard, 1993; Gass, 1993, Gillis, 2000). Blanchard (1993), Davis, Berman, and Capone (1994), Gass (1993), Gillis (without year; 2000), Gillis and Thomsen (1996), Gillis and Mcleod (1992), Hatala (1992), Maizell (1988), Moote and Woodarski (1997), and Ziven (1988) have attempted to explain the underlying process to adventure therapy. Gillis (2000) describes adventure therapy as non-traditional therapy allowing for the pre-therapeutic adolescent to experience their mental health issues. Gillis (et al.) describes the following theoretical aspects of adventure therapy: 1) it is a physical augmentation to traditional therapy for the purpose of a shared history with the participants and the therapist, 2) there is a sense of natural and logical consequences in the activities, 3) environment should be structured into the activities, 4) a participant perceives risk, stress, and anxiety so the they can problem solve and generate their own sense of community for feedback and behavior modeling, 5) participants will transfer their present attitudes and behaviors into the activities, 6) works with a small group of participants, and 7) requires a facilitator that models appropriate behaviors and guides the group towards adaptive self regulation that is based upon appropriate behaviors. Maizell (1988) focused on adventure therapy’s normalizing effects on deficits in delinquent adolescent’s developmental process. Maizell (1988) and Gillis and Mcleod (1992) report these normalizing effects as the process of moving into formal operational thinking which is achieved through the experiential learning theories in adventure therapy. Maizell (1988) further reports that a therapist holds the skills to make the adventure experience a therapy. Moote and Woodarski (1997), Blanchard (1993) and Davis, Berman, and Capone (1994) state the theoretical basis of adventure therapy describes the participant as a learning being who achieves their greatest learning outside the classroom, through challenge and perceived risk, promoting social skills through experiencing a group challenge mixed with affect, cognition, psychomotor activity and formal operational thinking generated through metaphor. Hatala (1992) states that experiential learning becomes adventure therapy when the activities are planned and implemented as vehicles for patients to address individual treatment goals. Hatala (1992) also theorized that adventure experiences molded into a more therapeutic group model ran by the therapist could have a more significant effect than the one day intervention run by counselors. Ziven (1988) describes the importance of having the clinician as an integral part of the adventure therapy process so that there can be a strong transference of the adventure experience to other aspects of the therapeutic process. Baldwin, Persing, and Magnuson (2004), though, report that many of these explanations are “…folk pedagogies…” that lack thorough empirical evidence (p. 172). Hattie, Marsh, Neill, and Richards (1997) report that adventure therapy research has focused on outcomes without exploring theoretical structure. They report that the focus of AT research needs to concentrate on testing and validating theoretical structure. Baldwin, Persing, and Magnuson (2004) further report that adventure therapy’s theoretical structure must be studied and documented. After a theoretical structure is validated then a discussion on outcomes can occur (Hattie, Marsh, Neill, and Richards, 1997).