Anyone who has hiked in the mountains knows that singular feeling of reaching the summit, of having made it through the struggle. The satisfaction runs deep. You feel at peace with yourself. The view opens before you, companions are near, and there is a particular sense of freedom. These sensations that restore us have the same effect on people living with mental illness and psychophysical disability—they become therapeutic.
We want to tell you about a project born within a public health structure, one that brings the mountains to people in difficulty as a tool for therapy and rehabilitation. We spoke with Giulio Scoppola, a psychotherapist, psychologist, and alpine climbing instructor with the Italian Alpine Club. He works in the Department of Mental Health at ASL RM E and initiated the project "Body-Mind-Environment."
Scoppola explains: "The natural landscape of the high mountains can be understood as a three-dimensional environment that, better than other traditional psycho-rehabilitative settings, reflects some of the inner dynamics of how the human mind works."
The "Body-Mind-Environment" project consists of activities that begin in a swimming pool, continue in a gymnasium, and culminate in nature. The work in the initial phase builds the foundation necessary to reach an ENVIRONMENT NOT BUILT BY HUMANS—the mountains themselves.
All of us carry blocks and fears we must overcome. Mountain climbing facilitates their dismantling and helps us process them. It is precisely nature, the environment untouched by human hands, that gives people wounded in the past the possibility to confront suffering and live through it, until they understand it can be overcome.
Usually, in protected environments—homes, institutions, psychiatric day centers—daily problems are easily solved. We are afraid of the dark and we flip a switch. But in the mountains, fear of the dark is solved through a different process: anticipating the difficulty and preparing for it, packing a flashlight in your backpack.
Scoppola continues: "Fear reemerges for what exists in the external world, not only within. But self-esteem also grows through reaching concrete, recognizable, unmovable objectives: the summit, the mountain hut, that patch of snow, that stretch of trail. Yet none of this would be possible without a continuous, trusting relationship with the psychotherapists, with the other people at the refuge, with those you meet along the way."
It is crucial that the mountain experience does not happen once, but can be repeated—and above all, that there is consistency between the theory and the interventions.
Groups are kept to a maximum of eight or nine people, including three or four staff members.
All participants share a common condition: they all must find the correct trail and carry a compass; all fear the dark; all carry a backpack with essentials; all sweat, all grow hungry or thirsty or cold. This experience builds personal autonomy even after you return home. We ask Scoppola finally: who is this "therapy" for? "For anyone with psychophysical difficulties—though I have worked primarily with people dealing with mental illness. But I know of groups in France and in Italy too, in Sulmona for example, who take disabled people to the mountains. They may not walk, but otherwise they have the same experiences as the others."
We thank Dr. Scoppola warmly for his generosity with his time. We found ourselves caught up in his enthusiasm for this project.
- Huberta Pott and Natalia Livi, 2000