This month’s volunteer spotlight shines on Graham Pringle, ISSTD Volunteer and Board Member!
Tell us about yourself.
I am a youth worker, and my preferred work is in adventure therapy, although I have experience in residential and foster care, and for ten years was an outdoor education teacher. I can lead rappelling, hiking, mountain biking, and canoeing expeditions. There was no dedicated theory for adventure therapy as healing for complex trauma, so I spent 10 years on a PhD project assembling a theory and creating a practice framework with the help of 30 Australian experts from the ISSTD, the adventure therapy association here, and seven young adventure therapy participants. In my state I am concentrating on drawing complex trauma into the mental health policy, and advocating for outdoor therapies as valid mainstream services. I am a board member of Outdoors Queensland and founded the Nature-based Health subcommittee just last month after a year of lobbying.
What is something most members may not know about you?
I spent 10 years in the regular Army as an Infantry officer, and was medically discharged with back injuries just before the decade of conflicts and peace keeping started in 1999.
How did you first learn about dissociation, and who are the experts in the field who have had the greatest influence on you?
I went to a talk by Warwick Middleton through a local mental health network in 2015 or thereabouts and was hooked as he described his first case. The Dissociation 101 by Christine Forner and Mary-Anne Kate was a pivotal experience for me. Claire Chang gave me wonderful insights about unstructured dissociation and action sequences. I went to a presentation by Rick Hohfeler by mistake at the 2024 Annual Conference and was too shy to leave, but soon became fully focused as he talked about shame. Probably the most extensive influence has been Emma Christensen’s System Speak podcast and her book If Tears Were Prayers.
What led you to join ISSTD?
I had started a PhD project seeking to combine complex trauma treatment and adventure therapy, and I noted there was a student discount. I have never regretted joining and watching so many fascinating webinars.
What are your volunteer roles with ISSTD, and what led you to volunteer?
I volunteered because I was asked, to be honest. I tried to fight Wikipedia editors over the ISSTD page and had a small win or two but desperately need help if anyone can code with me. I am currently the Chair of the Child & Adolescent SIG, the Australian and New Zealand ROC, and the Marketing Committee. I flounder about in the Finance Committee, and this is my second year on the Board of Directors, continuing a tradition of having one Australian involved.
Tell us a little about the role of adventure therapy in working with teens with complex trauma.
Adventure therapy, in my view, is a temporary community that is an ideal social system. It gives people a lived experience of what life can be, when surrounded with care (and love), democracy, interesting things to do and places that help us feel safe and content. In short, a lived experience of human rights, which is what is missing in people with complex trauma histories.
Children and adolescents respond rapidly to healthy situations. I think we can heal dissociation and complex trauma by the fundamental ‘associating’ aspects of doing engaging, whole-of-body things outdoors, with adults who have a strong sense of self. It is experiential, and I call it a non-talking therapy. It should be fun, safe, and build contentment.
There is a flavour of ‘tough love’ in adventure therapy world-wide, although barely noticeable in Europe and Australia. In the USA there is a wide range of practices, including some significantly coercive, and I feel complex trauma- and dissociation-inducing wilderness therapy. I am trying to draw my field’s attention to coercive practice as unhelpful. Thankfully, I have friends in the ISSTD, otherwise there would not be much of a welcome when entering the USA.