Copyright 2002
Wilderness Drum, Inc.
All rights reserved

Wilderness Peacemaking
Steve Beyer

Introduction The Peacemaking Perspective Sacred Gifts The Role of Stress Controlling Your Own Stress Preventing Loss of Control The Ways We Communicate Nonthreatening Approach The Stress Trajectory Appropriate Responses Signs of Distress Verbal Aggression Physical Attack Collapse and Reintegration Conclusion References

Appropriate Responses

As we have emphasized, it is important for the peacemaker to bear in mind the eventual reintegration of the disruptive or out-of-control person into the wilderness group, and thus create harmony, affirm equality and autonomy, and foster relationship. As a practical matter, the goal for the peacemaker is to respond appropriately to the intensity of the stress reaction, to stay in control of his or her own reactions, and to perform positive actions that prevent the behavior from becoming worse. Here are some examples.

Jack is on a wilderness vision fast and has had little prior wilderness experience. During a group discussion on some of the expected physiological consequences of a four-day fast, he gets up and starts pacing back and forth. The group leader says, “Jack, you need to sit down with the group and listen to this. It’s important.”

This is an inappropriately directive response, which does nothing to alleviate Jack’s anxiety, and which may well escalate his behavior into verbal aggression: “Oh yeah? Well, what are you? Some kind of doctor?” An appropriate response would be supportive rather than directive, without rushing or hurrying, providing an empathetic and nonjudgmental environment in which Jack could acknowledge his fear of being alone in the wilderness without food.

Marty is an adjudicated inner city youth who is on a thirty-day wilderness therapy trip as an alternative to juvenile detention. When Marty is told that it is his turn to fill in the latrine, he attacks the counselor verbally, threatening to trash the counselor’s car at the trailhead and sexually assault the counselor’s girlfriend back in the city. The last remark infuriates the counselor, who shoves Marty in the chest and says, “Don’t you ever talk to me like that again, you punk.”

This response is inappropriate in several ways. It is a physical response to an act of verbal intimidation, and it is thus an invitation to Marty to escalate his own behavior from the verbal to the physical. It puts Marty in the position of having either to fight back or lose face, of having no way to back gracefully out of the confrontation. It puts the counselor in the position of having lost his own rationality and self-control – hardly a model he would want Marty to follow. Most important, the counselor is closing doors to peacemaking, making later reintegration more difficult. Because each attempts to intimidate the other, both Marty and the counselor have lost by the encounter.

One way of judging whether a response to disruptive behavior is appropriate is to ask whether the response

< Previous       Next >

Back to the top
Return to Writings Page