Ecopsychology

Ecopsychology connects psychology and ecology with political and practical goals to show humans ways of healing alienation and to build a better society and a sustainable culture. Theodore Roszak is credited with coining the term in his 1992 book, The Voice of the Earth.

This field pushes psychology out of the built environment to examine why people continue to behave in ways that damage the environment, and the environmental movement would find new, positive ways to motivate people to action, rather than using negative emotions and actions like protest. Roszak expanded the idea in the 1995 anthology Ecopsychology with co-editors Mary Gomes and Allen Kanner. Other names used to describe this field: Gaia psychology, psychoecology, ecotherapy, environmental psychology, green psychology, global therapy, green therapy, Earth-centered therapy, reearthing, nature-based psychotherapy, shamanic counselling, and sylvan therapy.

The basic idea of ecopsychology is that while today the human mind is shaped by the modern social world, it is adapted to the natural world in which it evolved. According to the "biophilia hypothesis" of biologist E.O. Wilson human beings have an innate latent instinct to emotionally connect to nature, particularly aspects of nature that reflect what attachment psychologists have termed the environment of evolutionary adaptiveness, meaning the natural conditions humans lived with for most of their evolution.

Practical benefits

An important part of ecopsychological practice is to take psychotherapy out of office buildings and homes and put it into the open. According to the precepts of ecopsychology, a walk in the woods or even in a city park is refreshing, because that is what humans have over thousands of years evolved to do. Psychologists such as Roger Ulrich, Rachel and Stephen Kaplan, Frances Kuo and others have studied the beneficial effects of natural settings, and even of looking at pictures of landscapes, on the human psyche. Richard Louv's Last Child in the Woods: Saving our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder discusses these findings in detail.^{[citation needed]}

Another premise of ecopsychology is that steps taken to accept and notice nature can sharpen the senses and help people cultivate new skills. For example, the ability to track and navigate through a wilderness is improved if nature is noticed and accepted rather than feared. Similarly, ecopsychology proposes, sailors who appreciate the sea gain a keen sense for breeze directions.

Reasons to embrace nature

Ecopsychology explores how to make links and bonds with nature. It considers that this is worth doing because when nature is explored and viewed without judgement, it gives the sensations of harmony, balance, timelessness and stability. Ecopsychology largely rejects reductionist views of nature that focus upon rudimentary building blocks such as genes, and that describe nature as selfish and a struggle to survive. Ecopsychology considers that there has been insufficient scientific description and exploration of nature, in terms of wildness, parsimony, spirituality and emotional ties. For example, parsimony is the best way to produce an evolutionary tree of the species (cladistics), suggesting that parsimonious adaptations are selected. Yet today, the brain is often seen as complicated and governed by inherited mind modules, rather than being a simple organ that looks for parsimony within the influences of its surroundings, resulting in the compaction in minds of a great diversity of concepts.

Cultures that embrace nature

In its exploration of how to bond with nature, ecopsychology is interested in the examples provided by a wide variety of ancient and modern cultures that have histories of embracing nature. Examples include aboriginal, pagan, Buddhist, and Hindu cultures, as well as shamanism. This is not to say that such cultures are viewed without scepticism where appropriate. Of interest is how identity becomes entwined with nature, so that loss of those sacred places is far more devastating to indigenous people than often understood. Other lessons include how to live sustainably within an environment and the self-sacrifices made to tolerate natural limits, such as population control or a nomadic existence that allows the environment to regenerate.

Pain and delusions without nature

Ecopsychology contends that people feel an escalation of pain and despair in response to nature's continuing destruction. It also believes that that without the influence of nature, humans are prone to a variety of delusions, and that to some degree life in the wild forms the basis for human sanity and optimal psychological development. The topic is explored in detail Paul Shepard's book Nature and Madness.

See also

• Green exercise
• Green prescription
• Sustainability

• Environmental psychology
• Transpersonal ecology
• Conservation psychology

References

• Gaia Psychology http://www.gaiapsychology.org Gaia Psychology
• T. Roszak. The voice of the Earth: An exploration of ecopsychology. 1993 Touchstone, New York.
• T. Roszak, M.E. Gomes, A.D. Kanner (Eds). Ecopsychology, restoring the earth healing the mind. 1995 Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.
• D.D. Winter. Ecological Psychology: Healing the split between planet and self. 1996 Harper Collins, New York.

Further reading

• S. Foster with M. Little. The Book of the Visionquest: Personal Transformation in the Wilderness. 1987 Prentice Hall Press, New York
• C. Glendinning. My Name is Chellis & I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization. 1994 Shambhala, Boston.
• H. Clinebell. Ecotherapy: Healing Ourselves, Healing the Earth. 1996 Fortress Press, Minneapolis, MN.
• J. Macy & M.Y. Brown. Coming Back to Life: Practices to reconnect our lives, our world. 1998 New Society Publishers, Gabriola Island, B.C.
• R. Metzner. Green Psychology: Transforming Our Relationship to the Earth. 1999 Park Street Press, Rochester, VT.
• L. Buzzell & C. Chalquist (Eds). Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature In Mind. 2009 Sierra Club Books, San Francisco.

External links

• Gaia Psychology / Online Ecopsychology Education and Training
• The Center for Ecopsychology / Certificate Training in Ecopsychology
• Circling San Francisco Bay - A Pilgrimage to Wild and Sacred Places
• Ecopsychology and the Way of Wilderness by Steven Harper
• Project NatureConnect
• International Community for Ecopsychology
• European Ecopsychology Society
• Collective Blog on Ecopsychology
• John Scull: "Ecopsychology. Where does it fit in psychology?"
• New Ecopsychology or Spiritual Ecology
• Theodore Roszak: "The nature of sanity"
• Ecopsychology journal
• [1] University of the West of England symposium
• Naropa University Ecopsychology Degree Program
• Daniel B. Smith: "Is There an Ecological Unconscious"
• Ecopsychologists Reveal Nature's Amazing Restorative Power by Niki Collins-Queen http://www.authorsden.com/visit/viewarticle.asp?id=14049