Episode 69: Kirsten Bolt, Clinical Therapist at Open Sky Wilderness Therapy

<p>Kirsten Bolt is a clinical therapist at <a href= "https://www.openskywilderness.com/team/kirsten-bolt-2/">Open Sky</a>.  She is a licensed marriage and family therapist and began her journey into the field in 2004 as a field guide at Aspen Achievement Academy (AAA).  She shares her story of being a field guide to being a clinician in a wilderness program.  Kirsten shares her heartbreaking experience of being a clinician at AAA as it closed. After AAA closed Kirsten immediately called Open Sky Wilderness and was hired. Kirsten shares her amazing work with adolescent girls.</p> <p>Bio from Open Sky Website:</p> <p>Kirsten is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. She graduated from Syracuse University in 1999, Summa Cum Laude, with a BS in Health and Exercise Science. Instead of following her projected course to study Biomechanics, she turned west, seeking something that felt missing. That trip landed her in Utah amid stunning red-rock canyons, wide sandy rivers, and abundant sunshine. Kirsten finds wilderness to be a uniquely powerful setting for young people to connect to themselves, to others, and to their means of contributing to the world.</p> <p>Her wilderness therapy career began as a field guide in 2004. In that role, she felt drawn to the deeply intimate, interpersonal work that occurred with families, and in 2007 she enrolled at the University of Oregon to complete a graduate degree in Couple and Family Therapy. Her other clinical experiences enable her to understand complex intra- and interpersonal dynamics. Her clinical background includes working at the Center for Family Therapy in Eugene, Oregon, with couples, families, and individuals of all ages experiencing a wide variety of struggles. She facilitated bereavement support groups for elementary-aged children, served high school girls in an impoverished community, led mother-daughter support groups, and provided individual and family therapy services at a center for girls aged 10-18. Kirsten is particularly passionate about family therapy, and s