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The use of adventure as a part of healing process can be traced back in history to many cultures including Native American, Jewish and Christian traditions (Parker, 1992). Tent therapy, emerged in the early 1900s. This therapy brought certain psychiatric patients out of hospital buildings and into tents on the hospital’s lawn. Many patients showed improvement during this treatment that prompted a series of studies, which failed to present enough evidence to support efficacy. Literature on this therapy lasted approximately 20 years and then dropped off completely (Berman & Davis-Berman, 1995).

In the late 1930s this approach reappeared mainly as camping programs designed for troubled youth. This era influenced the present day use and extent of adventure therapy programs with adolescents. The format for these programs utilized observation, diagnosis and psychotherapy. One of the first of these programs was Salesmanship Club Camp based in Dallas, Texas and founded by Campbell Loughmiller in 1946. His philosophy of adventure in therapy included the theory that the “…perception of danger and immediate natural consequences for [a] lack of cooperation on the part of [participants]…[after confronting danger] built self-esteem, [while] suffering natural consequences taught the real need for cooperation” (Berman & Davis-Berman, 1995, p. 3). These ideas informed some adventure therapy programs

This period also saw the creation of Outward Bound (OB) in the 1940s by Kurt Hahn (Aghazarian 1996; Blanchard, 1993; Dickens 1999; Glass, 1999; Parker 1992; Ziven 1988). Outward Bound was a direct response to Lawrence Holt, part owner of the Blue Funnel Shipping Company, [who] was looking for a training program for young sailors who seemed to have lost the tenacity and fortitude needed to survive the rigors of war and shipwreck, unlike older sailors who, because of their formative experiences on sailing ships, were more likely to survive (http://www.outwardbound.net/about/history/ob-birth.html). In this way Outward Bound was engaging in a form of adventure therapy - intervening in the lack of tenacity through the use of challenging adventure training