Adventure therapy has normalizing effects on deficits in delinquent adolescent developmental processes, as a way of moving into formal operational thinking, which is achieved through the experiential learning theories. The theoretical basis of adventure therapy describes the participant as a learning being who achieves their greatest learning outside the classroom, through challenge and perceived risk, promoting social skills through experiencing a group challenge mixed with affect, cognition, psychomotor activity, and formal operational thinking generated through metaphor. Experiential learning becomes adventure therapy when the activities are planned and implemented as vehicles for patients to address individual treatment goals. Adventure experiences molded into a more therapeutic group model run by the therapist can have a more significant effect than the one-day intervention run by counselors. It is important to have the clinician as an integral part of the adventure therapy process so that there can be a strong transference of the adventure experience to other aspects of the therapeutic process.