Walden Project

Walden Project is an outdoor therapy program focused on nature connection, set in a forested property on the beautiful Oregon Coast.  We work with youth and families.  Our services include individual therapy, family therapy, skills training  and activity group therapies.  Our model is based on work done by cultural anthropologist John Young, who studied indigenous cultures around the world for thirty years.  He sought to find out what customs and traditions they had to teach health and happiness to their people and how they passed those lessons on to future generations.  Over time, he found that many of these cultures have the same values, and taught many of the same lessons.  He took all the information and organized it into what he called the 8-Shields Model for Mentoring.  With his permission and support, we adapted it into a mental health model.  It has been wildly effective!