. The mountains, lakes, and forests will become our psychiatrists. Stress therapy will be solitude and silence scheduled at regular intervals." She goes on to quote the late Edward Abbey, author and park ranger, "'we need wilderness whether or not we ever set foot in it. We need the possibility of escape as surely as we need hope; without it the life of the cities would drive all men into crime, drugs or psychoanalysis'" (p. 7) The natural environment has the power to set one's mind at peace and give hope to a sometimes dreary world. In Anne LaBastille's article, The Park of Sacred Spaces, an experience is told of a class she taught in Wilderness Literature and Writing. She required each person to take a 24-hour solo trip in the Adirondack backcountry. The students discussed feelings of excitement, worry and fear. They talked through these feelings and she reassured them that all would be well. After a short bout with the school administration and resolving parents' concerns for their children's safety, she asked the students if they wanted to cancel the trips. They unanimously voted to continue. She then comments about the results of the students' trips saying, "Every student proclaimed the solo an integral part of the course. Many learned practical lessons . . . Others took leaps of self-confidence and courage. Two wrote superb nature journals. Most importantly, each one experienced 'confrontation of the self by the self' which Sue Halpern McKibben . . . calls 'solitude's true vocation.'" (LaBastille, 1992, p. 7) There are certainly many health benefits to periodic, physical isolation deep in nature's boundaries. Due to the fact that urban life normally leads to smog and other types of pollution, many people get away to wilderness areas just to breathe clean air. In fact, it is not uncommon for doctors to prescribe physical removal to a location that maintains cleaner air. Sunlight and a view of nature alone can mentally, if not physi...
