Understanding the Terrain: Foundations of Behavioral Health in the Backcountry - Online Classroom

This Leadership Development Series seminar introduces the Behavioral Health Conditions Model, illustrating how biology, brain structure, lived experience, and social constructs interact to shape behavior. This session invites a fundamental shift in how behavioral health is understood not as something that resides only within an individual, but as a dynamic, interconnected system that includes leaders, participants, and the environment itself.

Drawing on neuroscience and human evolution, participants explore how our brains developed the emotional and behavioral responses we rely on for survival, fear, joy, attachment, cooperation, withdrawal and why these responses remain essential, even when they appear disruptive. The session examines where emotions originate in the brain and body, what purposes they serve, and how understanding them can transform health, leadership, communication, and group safety.

Participants also examine how social context, culture, identity, and shared norms shape which emotions and behaviors are seen as acceptable or problematic. By integrating biological, emotional, and social perspectives, behavioral health becomes reframed as inseparable from overall health and safety in the wilderness, no different than understanding fractures, infections, or hypothermia.

Presenter

Kallie Kurtz is a Behavioral Health Clinician specializing in trauma, ADHD, and crisis response in emergency departments, individual therapy, and public health policy. An avid whitewater kayaker and mountain enthusiast, she has been exploring the outdoors for over 30 years. Bringing together her passions for the outdoors, wilderness medicine, and behavioral health, she has been working to ensure Backcountry Behavioral Health is fully incorporated into wilderness medicine and outdoor adventure fields. A Wilderness First Responder since 2009, she spent nearly a decade instructing and guiding outdoor expeditions, where she witnessed firsthand the profound connection between mental health, risk, and resilience in remote environments. With expertise in trauma, PTSD recovery, and resilience building, Kallie equips outdoor enthusiasts to understand behavioral health, navigate high-stress incidents and foster post-traumatic growth in wilderness settings.

7:00-8:30pm PST via Zoom Meeting
Meeting link will be sent to registered attendees the day of the session.