Scuba Therapy?

[Mrs. Hill]

I am so glad I found this site. I am a social worker and I have an agency that is strickly for foster care children ages 14-21. I take these adolescents overseas to learn a second language. This is a drop out prevention program. Part of my program for next year will be scuba therapy. I am very concerned about the states reaction to this activity, but I believe that it would be a wonderful experience for this population to confront a challenge such as scuba diving. I believe it would have a huge impact on confronting and/or overcoming their fears
(in relation to their present situation of course).

 

[Doc Intrepid]

Yep - I personally use scuba as a form of "therapy." I find it a very spiritual experience. Good for the mind and the soul...

Me too.

Only thing is, there is a difference between enjoying scuba as 'self-therapy', as I do, and using scuba as a therapy tool for others.

I'm not a pro in the social work field, but I'd think that calling it "confidence building" (something like 'Outward Bound') rather than formal "therapy" might possibly be less controversial. (There have been some pretty bizarre 'therapy sessions' in the field over the last three years, with some fatalities...) As a confidence builder for young people, though, assuming an excellent instructor, divemaster and shop, scuba has to rank right up there with anything else I can think of.

 

[Bill H]

I concur, absolutely. I come to realize that my dive trips are the best form of therapy I could ever imagine. This is never more apparent than when I "snap back" into "reality" a couple of days after returning home.

 

[Bonnet Ray]

I am so trying to get the clinicians that i manage to try using scuba diving as part of their therapy. Yes we need to be careful who we pick but i believe that right across the spectrum of young people with mental health issues this could really work.

We are looking to build a new children's centre and i am pushing for a small pool so that we can at least do some try dives. And I can sit at the bottom of the pool when it all gets to much!

I also use scuba as my therapy, no-one can call me underwater and my mind has to be on what i'm doing so all other worries just disappear.

 

[ArcticDiver]

For me SCUBA is great therapy from the commotion of daily life. I thoroughly enjoy it and the people I meet during my dives. I mean therapy in the sense that many hobbies are "therapy" for their participants. In this sense SCUBA would be no different from Square Dancing, Carpentery, Mountain Climbing, or any other of a number of other activities.

But I firmly believe inflicting a person with some of the pathological or unintegrated behavior I have seen on a diver, or on a dive boat would be both dangerous and unfair. So, put it in your resource file as a possible helpful hobby. But also recognize that unlike some other hobbies this one can not only kill the participant, the participant can kill someone else.

 

[theskull]

I'm new to the world of scuba diving, and am also a psychotherapist. I'm convinced scuba diving would be great therapy for any number of issues. My heart goes out to adolescents, especially girls, perhaps owing to my own parenting of my daughters, 15 and 17, who are adopted from foster care. Does anyone have experience with "scuba therapy"? I'm also interested in any ideas anyone has about the prospect.

If you are a trained psychotherapist you are aware of some of the benefits of sensory deprivation therapy. SCUBA shares some components--weightlessness, no speech, very little aural input. But it has the added benefits of experiencing an alternate universe and feeling the "flying-through-the-water" sensation.

SCUBA is definitely therapy for me. Leave your troubles behind on shore and become immersed in the underwater universe. You also get some physical workout from carrying tanks and weights to and from the dive site and climbing in and out of the water with gear on.

Good luck in pursuing this option,

theskull