Carpenter, after coleading and concluding an elk hunt with clients, heading out of high camp with two packs strapped together for the journey, along with their gear and elk.
When Josh Carpenter ’80 was 10 years old, he found a box of reel-to-reel audio tapes in his father’s office. His father was a clinical psychologist who specialized in working with troubled boys. The tapes were conversations he recorded as part of his dissertation. Carpenter started playing them and was instantly transfixed.
“I was just amazed to hear this guy that I knew as ‘dad’ be incredibly more patient and kind and thoughtful with these kids, who were clearly young boys my age,” Carpenter says. “I’m not saying he was impatient with me, but he was a dad with me.”
His father found him listening to the tapes and took them away, lecturing him about confidentiality. But the elder Carpenter was amused by his son’s interest. He made a subtle effort to encourage him, often talking about work at the dinner table. “These weren’t Ward and June Cleaver dinners,” Carpenter says.
These conversations left a deep imprint on the empathetic Carpenter. He went on to become a psychologist who has dedicated his life to working with adolescents. “What makes it a good fit is that teenagers take no prisoners,” Carpenter says. “You have to be emotionally congruent, and you have to be who you are. From a young age, I knew who I was.”
Growing up in New Hampshire’s White Mountains, Carpenter developed a love for hiking and hunting. While the broad strokes of his career may resemble his father’s, Carpenter has forged his own path as a pioneer of wilderness psychology, a therapeutic approach combining outdoor experiences with traditional counseling. “I realized that I’m so much healthier when I’m outside,” Carpenter says. “I wanted to find a way to combine that with psychology.”
Carpenter with a pair of king salmon caught off the coast of Sitka, Alaska, board his boat, Miss Adventure, during a trip guiding clients on a wilderness therapy adventure.
Carpenter and his wife live in Craftsbury, Vermont, where he spends winters skiing and coaching Special Olympics athletes. Their two chest freezers are packed with wild game from therapeutic wilderness adventures, such as elk hunting in New Mexico and salmon fishing in Alaska, where Carpenter lives on his boat during summers.
Carpenter credits his two years at Taft with deepening his appreciation for nature. After getting cut from the varsity soccer team, faculty member Eric Drake, who ran an outdoor program, asked if he had any interest in hiking. Carpenter lit up. Drake and teacher Ted Heavenrich (for whitewater kayaking) were “two very competent and giving mentors of wilderness experience for me at Taft,” Carpenter says. “[They] introduced me to outdoor adventuring. I never looked back.”
At Taft, Carpenter also sharpened his commitment to helping others. “I was that guy who hung out with the kids who were quietly having a hard time,” he says. “They called it ‘being a natural helper.’ The truth was that I had a lot of great adult role models who treated me like a person instead of talking down to me. They took me seriously, so I could talk about serious stuff.”
This is the same approach Carpenter uses with his clients. When he works with a child, he also works with the child’s entire family, a unique method that has yielded impressive results. During candid conversations, no topic is off limits. “I’m an advocate for the family system,” Carpenter says. “I’m going to talk to everyone. And once they realize I’m not talking smack about anybody, everyone feels good about it because they realize I just want everyone to win. That’s all I want. I want the system to get stronger.”
Carpenter and his colead on a public land hunt in northern New Mexico, after a long day of moving a harvested bull elk’s parts back to base camp at 10,000 feet several miles away.
Carpenter attributes much of his success to time spent with clients outside the office on a trail or in a boat, in pursuit of game or fish. Time spent outside is central to his work. “Hands are busy and yet minds can wander, and the most recalcitrant kids turn into talkers,” Carpenter says. For him, the most rewarding moments come when parents share these adventures and see their children confidently showcasing new skills, like butchering a deer or setting a fishing lure.
“It’s about parents seeing their kids in a different light,” Carpenter says. “My goal is to shift their lenses.”
Recently, Carpenter has devoted more time to mentoring younger wilderness therapists. “I feel like I’m in the youth of my elderhood,” he says. “I don’t need to make a lot of money. I just want to influence and empower as many young women and men as I can.” In doing so, he is passing the torch and ensuring that the next generation is equipped to carry this important work forward into the wild.