Bill Plotkin

Bill Plotkin, PhD, founded Colorado’s Animas Valley Institute in 1981. Since then, he has guided thousands of women and men through nature-based initiatory passages, including a contemporary, Western adaptation of the pan-cultural vision quest. He is author of Wild Mind: A Field Guide to the Human Psyche; Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche; and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World.

With a doctorate in psychology from the University of Colorado at Boulder, Plotkin has been a research psychologist (studying nonordinary states of consciousness) and professor of psychology. In 1979, on a solo winter ascent of an Adirondack peak, he experienced a call to adventure, leading him to abandon academia in search of his true calling.