ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the basic assumptions theory and practice underpinning the implementation of outdoor therapies. It examines the stories and histories that have been told the roots of outdoor therapies, biased language, and relationships with the outdoors or nature. The dominant history of outdoor therapies, as found in web searches, seems to have a great deal of agreement. Practitioners in outdoor therapies are encouraged to pay attention to the attributes around the risk-taking rather than the risky action in itself. Risk is complicated, and means different things to different people, and what feels risky is an individual experience. Risk can be fun and rewarding, yet risk aversion in many areas is healthy. Critical thinking, which looks deeply at a subject or process, uses a questioning approach that, in a sense, never ends, and when used well, leads to continuously increasing understanding and a move toward overcoming egocentrism and socio-centrism.
