BREA : Patients Learning to Overcome Obstacles

Imagine walking above a raging river on a four-inch cable.

That’s just what patients at CPC Brea Canyon Hospital, a private psychiatric center, do in a program modeled after successful wilderness training programs.

The two-hour program is a group therapy session in which participants must work together to accomplish a task such as “climbing a mountain.” When the assignment is over, they discuss what they have learned about themselves during the exercise.

The sessions take place on the hospital grounds.

“It provides another level of therapeutic treatment for the patient,” said Bonnie Wiley, program coordinator. “It’s not an obstacle course but an internal obstacle course.”

About 200 patients have participated in the program since November.

“It encourages cohesiveness, how to respond in a group and what role the individual takes in group decision-making,” Wiley said.

For example, while falling backward into the arms of a group of people, a person might have to reach out to others for help. Wiley said that such actions often remind people of the relationships in their own families.

“It took one person three times to successfully do a trust fall. When that person finally did, she burst out into tears,” Wiley said.

There are sessions geared toward adults and adolescents, as well as a special group for substance abusers, said Brian Kersh, the hospital’s administrator.

Patients are referred to the groups by their doctors.

Kersh said he plans to open the program to local business and youth groups in the fall when the program celebrates its first anniversary.