Dispatches: Can Nature Heal Our Deepest Wounds?

Wilderness therapy has been used for decades to help troubled teens and addicts, and recently all kinds of people are seeking out guided nature experiences to detox from their hyper-digital modern lives. The classic approach of such programs is to push participants to challenge their limits in order to build character. That can work great, but it’s not a smart recipe for those trying to recover from emotional trauma. Not long ago, contributing editor Florence Williams, author of the The Nature Fix, went backpacking with victims of sex trafficking, writing about it for Outside’s May 2018 issue. Now she’s adapted the story for The Three-Day Effect, a new series for Audible that explores what’s really happening in our brains when we head outdoors. This episode, an excerpt of that project, reveals the surprising ways we can find comfort in wilderness.