Retreat, outdoor experiences help cancer patients, veterans

The combination of social support and a retreat setting resulted in significant reduction in depression and anxiety for women diagnosed with stages 1 or 2 breast cancer. Similarly, the use of an outdoor recreation intervention helped to improve the moods and symptoms of stress experienced by veterans with Posttraumatic Stress Disorder.

Elizabeth Vella, Ph.D., associate professor of psychology at the University of Southern Maine, the individual at the helm of both studies, sees a common thread.

“They resonate nicely,” she says. “Both use components of social support and the person is able to heal through engaging in specific activities.”

The first study had 28 female breast cancer patients ages 25 to 67 participate in a week-long retreat at the F. Holland Day Center for Creativity and Healing in Georgetown, Maine. Four separate retreats were conducted.

The patients were diagnosed with breast cancer an average of one year prior to the study with a half dozen women at five years or more past their diagnosis. Participants completed a self-report on their psychological distress on the first and last days of the retreat as well as six weeks later.

At the center, the women were given digital cameras and encouraged to go out in nature amidst the seascape and photograph images representing feelings such as what it was like to be diagnosed or what they thought their cancer looked like. Those images were put up on a screen during group therapy sessions as the women shared thoughts and experiences.

“They tended to leave with a clearer sense of what matters most to them and how they want to spend their lives,” Vella says. “They experienced sustained, significant reductions in depression, anxiety and somatic stress and improvements in spiritual well-being.”

The intervention was designed by study co-author Matthew Budd, M.D., who converted his vacation home into the retreat center and originally intended to work with cardiac patients there.

In addition to the photographic art therapy, participants engaged in yoga, meditation and journal writing.

Vella says that she’d like to investigate whether the intervention would work in a clinical setting. She believes that the program also can be generalized to prove effective with other conditions.

“It demonstrates the notion of social support and learning from one another – people who share struggles and ‘get’ each other. Hashing things out with someone who came out on the other side helps to show the light at the end of the tunnel,” she says.

A second pilot study featured 74 veterans (69 men/five women) with combat-induced PTSD who had an average of four years of military service and ranged in age from 22 to 64. They participated in one of 19 fly fishing retreats at the Rivers of Recovery residential facility in northern Utah off the Green River.

The veterans completed assessments of attentiveness, mood, depression, anxiety and somatic stress two weeks before the trip, on the last day of the three-night excursion and six weeks later.

Vella says the study showed beneficial effects in all areas from the group-based outdoor recreational experience. Fly fishing was chosen, she says, because it induces a “calm alertness,” in a pristine, natural environment.

“It was so fascinating and inspiring to bear witness to the changes experienced by these veterans,” she says, adding that most arrived at the facility “begrudgingly” and didn’t want to make eye contact with others.

Vella recalls that the vets were able to open up to each other after one day. “On the last day, there was one man who started to cry and said that he felt like he could go out to the movies now. This was a reclusive person who lived in the woods for a while. Saying that he was ready to go in a dark room full of strangers is a big deal in my mind,” Vella says. “The time he spent in nature in that calming environment helped him gain trust and confidence.”

The researcher says that she found the severity of the vets’ PTSD symptoms and suicidal tendencies “jaw dropping,” especially because many were taking multiple medications.

And while programs of this nature are common in the field, Vella adds that research about it falls short. “Here is where the clinical field and experimental field disconnect,” she says. “Veterans are a group that don’t respond well to traditional therapy. Programs with therapeutic effects are worthy of more exploration.”