Isomorphic Framing - Learning Life Lessons from a Climbing Wall

Isomorphic Framing- When the Wall is like life

Climbing a wall is like living your life , just take it one step at a time!.

One might question, What has the wall got to do with real life?

In our work as Experiential and Outdoor Educators, we use high ropes and adventure based challenges as metaphors for intrapersonal and interpersonal process work.

When the holds, harness, helmets, carabiners are like your resources, opportunities or challenges in life!

When the belayer represents all those people who extend help and support you in life.
When the rope becomes the trust or relationship you have with family and friends that creates your life support system.

An metaphor is an idea, object, or value that is like another different idea, object or value in the participants life. It is symbolic, denotes comparative likeness and similarity between the two.

Isomorphic Framing in facilitation is used as a intervention for creating a metaphorical structure. For example, in the case of a climbing wall, The activity of climbing along with the holds, harness, ropes, safety devices, belayer create a meaningful link to other aspects of the participants real lives.

Essentially Isomorphic framing creates a metaphoric relationship between two different environments (activity/experience and real life) and enhances the transfer and application of the learning from one environment to the other and enables the participants to change the way they think and behave in their real life.

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References:
Priest, S., & Gass, M. (1997) Effective Leadership in Adventure Programming.
Vishwas Parchure - DEEP - Diploma in Experiential Education and Practice