Climbing as a way to promote mental health

This book first provides an overview of the effects of climbing on mental health and the extent to which climbing is already used in therapies. It also describes a specially designed training program that combines climbing with mindfulness and self-compassion (resource-strengthening climbing). The training was examined in the course of a study on aspects of mental health such as affect and resilience. It was compared with established methods of mindfulness and self-compassion in order to evaluate its effectiveness. In the study described climbing was shown to be an effective medium for improving mindfulness self-compassion and self-efficacy and thus also mental resilience. The results are embedded in the current state of research and discussed.