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Towards peak experience - exploring the influence of wilderness on conscious awareness
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 June 2021
Abstract
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Aims
This study examines what effect wilderness has on our conscious awareness, and by extension of that meta-cognition; our physical, mental and spiritual health. It reviews available scientific and artistic literature and integrates this with interviews in order to generate original grounded theory. It was found that intensity of wilderness experience varied proportionally with four mediators; Challenge, Immersion, Beauty and Time. With these maximised, experiences broadly within four themes occurred; Increased Awareness, Confidence, Perspective and Connectedness. When sufficiently intense, these four experiences amalgamated to elicit what Maslow described as 'Peak Experience'. As such, this thesis unexpectedly provides a pragmatic recipie towards peak experience, and a map of one's potential psychological journey, in the context of wilderness.
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- Research
- Information
- BJPsych Open , Volume 7 , Supplement S1: Abstracts of the RCPsych Virtual International Congress 2021, 21–24 June , June 2021 , pp. S281
- Creative Commons
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.- Copyright
- Copyright © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of the Royal College of Psychiatrists
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