The Interpreted Rock

By Stephen C. Schultz I had an experience at Oxbow Academy a few weeks ago. It’s an experience that is transferable to just about any work environment. I hope you find this helpful as you interact with colleagues in your place of employment. Thomas Holmes, our photographer, and I were at Oxbow taking pictures of the administration team. This included the Executive Director, Residential Director, Academic Director, and teachers. It also included the Clinical Director and therapists. All of these shots were for use on the website. We decided to take the pictures in the new horse arena so we could have a standard background, regardless of outside weather. In the future, because of the ever-changing weather, we will be glad to have a standard background. I was standing next to the tack room with a group of teachers. I was making small talk and noticed a few of them standing there, watching Tony and Brita working with a student and a horse. There was no conversation happening with th...

Guest Blog By Amanda Schultz Wiping the sweat from my eyes, I took a deep breath as the referee handed me the game ball. This was my moment: the biggest match in the history of my 15-year-old volleyball career was tied up at 26, and I had the chance to win it all for my team with this last serve. All eyes were on me. The gym was so quiet. It felt as though I was underwater. My heart was pounding so loud I was convinced everyone else could hear it too. “Don’t miss this, Amanda,” I told myself. “Just get it over the net and in the court.” As the referee blew his whistle, I lingered for one final second, trying to calm my nerves. I tossed the ball into the air, applauding myself on the solid connection, the fabulous follow-through, the flat contact, and watched the ball sail... straight into the net. I was living the moment athletes have nightmares about. I had single-handedly lost the game for my team. This experience came to mind as I started playing volleyball at Dix...

By Stephen C. Schultz Over the last 25 years, I have noticed a shift in the youth my organization works with and in the struggles these young people encounter. What I am seeing is not merely symptomatic of a rebellious teen or the burdens that accompany mental illness. It seems many students and families are headed down a path with very few options for changing course. What I’m sensing is that our society, in general, is struggling in many ways. What I see happening with our youth is symptomatic of larger social ills. What I’m observing touches the very heart of identity —the essence of who we are. It raises the question of who we are as a society and who we are as individuals. As I work with teens who find themselves involved in dishonest behavior, unhealthy relationships, and entitled attitudes, there is one common thread that runs through every family situation. Throughout the teen’s stages of childhood and adolescence, these young people have moved away from life’s t...

By Stephen C. Schultz As the father of four, I have always been amazed at the time and effort that goes into teaching your children. If your experience is anything like mine, there have been instructions given, reminders mentioned and sometimes an elevated tone in my voice just to get my kids to do the simplest of requests. I'm sure I wasn't much different when I was younger. I remember summertime as a kid. Sunny days were far and few between in Eugene, Oregon! My dad would have a list of chores for us kids to do written on a piece of paper and left on the dining room table. We were supposed to have the chores done before he got home from work. It seems that every day consisted of riding our bikes, playing "stunt man" on the stairs or building forts in the living room with the couches, blankets and pillows! Rarely were the chores our top priority...until about an hour before he got home! Then, we would scurry around the house to clean up. We would race out...

By Stephen C. Schultz The 1971-1972 school year was looking to be a good one! With the wind whistling through my hair, I coasted down City View Street on my green Schwinn Sting-Ray, complete with the slick back tire and the gear shift on the center bar, headed to school at Westmoreland Elementary. Even though it had been a couple of weeks, I was feeling comfortable and getting settled into third grade. I came to a stop at the corner of 18th and City View and waited for the light to change. The school was directly across the street. I stepped off the curb and into the crosswalk. Once I was safely across, I rode on to the space behind the gym where the bike racks were. I took the combination lock off my bike, rotated the tumblers to 9399, pulled the green vinyl-coated chain apart, and ran it through the front tire and around the bike rack. I put the chain back together and rolled the tumblers to random numbers. This was the routine just about every day, rain or shine, for many of the stu...

Guest Blogger Steven M. DeMille, PhD, LCMHC Program Therapist/Research Director RedCliff Ascent I hope things are going well. I wanted to send you an update on the presentation that Mark Burdick and I did at the World Psychological Forum. The World Psychological Forum (WPF) is an interdisciplinary conference that explores the intersection of psychology and other fields such as economics, politics, and cross cultural studies. The WPF was hosted in the Czech Republic, with participants coming from all over the world. The presentation that Mark and I conducted was an e-poster that focused on cross cultural treatment in an Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare program. The presentation was titled: Nature as a stage for change: A case study examination of the treatment process in an Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare program .   For this presentation we provided a case study example of how an outdoor environment can be used to facilitate change with a struggling ...

By Stephen C. Schultz RedCliff Ascent is an Outdoor Behavioral Healthcare (OBH) program for adolescents who are essentially stuck in the adolescent stages of development. They lack the coping mechanisms, competencies and discipline necessary to manage their lives at an age appropriate level. In other treatment settings, these students may be labeled by their diagnoses, which often includes ADHD, ODD, Depression, Anxiety, ASD, etc.  The RedCliff treatment protocol recognizes that the student and the illness are two distinctly separate components. A student’s life should not be defined by a diagnosis. Each is specifically addressed independently in the therapeutic process. We help the student and family understand how a specific cluster of symptoms associated with their diagnosis has impacted the student’s developmental progression.  RedCliff’s therapeutic model disrupts these unhealthy patterns of behavior and reintegrates the student into a more healthy d...