May 2003
Hello Fellow Ecotherapists,
The International Association for Ecotherapy is a virtual organization of psychotherapy clinicians, students and educators who are practicing or teaching in the new field of clinical ecotherapy/applied ecopsychology. If you'd like to be removed from this list, please just e-mail me back. Or if you'd like to send me e-mail addresses to add, news to pass along, or your insights, please do so! Joining is absolutely free.
INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ECOTHERAPY
NEWS AND VIEWS
May 2003
Founder/Editor: Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, M.A., M.F.T.
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist
Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, California
lbuzzell@aol.com
Contents:
a) QUOTE OF THE MONTH – Carl Jung
b) THE HEALING POWER OF TREES by Sarah Edwards
c) ECOTHERAPY ARTICLE IN THE NEW ISSUE OF “UTNE” MAGAZINE!
d) WHAT’S SIMPLICITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?
e) SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE “CONTRARY FARMER,” GENE LOGSDON
f) THE TRUMPETER: JOURNAL OF ECOSOPHY
a) QUOTE OF THE MONTH
“Through scientific understanding, our world has become dehumanized. Man feels himself isolated in the cosmos. He is no longer involved in nature and has lost his emotional participation in natural events, which hitherto had a symbolic meaning for him. Thunder is no longer the voice of a god, nor is lightening his avenging missile. No river contains a spirit, no tree means a man’s life, no snake is the embodiment of wisdom, and no mountain still harbors a great demon. Neither do things speak to him nor can he speak to things, like stones, springs, plants, and animals. He no longer has a bush-soul identifying him with a wild animal. His immediate communication with nature is gone forever, and the emotional energy it generated has sunk into the unconscious.”
Carl Jung, in an essay called “Healing the Split” from “Jung’s Collected Works – Vol 18, The Symbolic Life.”
(Many thanks to Tia Galipeau, M.A., M.F.T., Jungian analyst from Woodland Hills, California, for this quotation.)
b) THE HEALING POWER OF TREES
By Sarah Edwards
Trees are good for us. Scientific studies say we enjoy many of the healing benefits of trees without even knowing the positive effects they’re having on our lives.
Here’s just a sampling of what researchers have discovered about our relationship with trees:
Hospital patients with a window view of trees need less pain medication and are discharged sooner than those without such views.
Given a choice between a scene with trees and one without, people of all ages and ethnic groups from all countries prefer the scene with trees.
Just knowing that natural places are available nearby makes a residence more appealing to buyers.
People are more satisfied with their neighborhoods if there are trees on or near their property. They describe their lives as safer, more pleasant and are more satisfying when living in homes with trees nearby.
Residents living in apartments with a window view of trees are significantly less aggressive toward family members than those whose windows look onto concrete, asphalt or barren earth. They engage in fewer insults, threats and other psychologically aggressive behavior.
Police report lower crime rates in areas of public housing developments that have a density of trees.
Just imagine the effect trees could have on our lives if we made sure to keep them around!
From Nature’s Wisdom, Spring 2003.
Copyright Pine Mountain Institute, 2003
To read more of this wonderful free newsletter, check out www.simplegoodlife.com/nature’s_wisdom_Spring%2002.htm
c) ECOTHERAPY ARTICLE IN THIS MONTH’S ISSUE OF “UTNE” MAGAZINE
It’s not often that I find an intriguing article about ecopsychology in a general interest magazine, so I was delighted to discover that the current issue of “Utne” features a great piece by Jeremiah Creedon on “The Greening of Tony Soprano: Even Mobsters Feel the Pain of Ecological Alienation.” Pick up a copy at your favorite newsstand and also check www.utne.com for more on this great magazine.
Here’s a description of the article, followed by a few quotes:
“Acclaimed for its sharp social satire, The Sopranos also breaks new ground in exploring the hidden psychic fallout of ecological degradation. The show is practically a primer on the emerging field of ecopsychology, which explores the link between mental health and the natural world. So why has the massive coverage of the show missed this message?”
“Our estrangement from nature creates a culture in which men claim the right and the NEED to destroy other living things…”
“Over the last decade, ecopsychology has emerged as an alternative view of mental health that’s been shaped by influences as far afield as Darwinian biology, Gaia theory, Buddhism, and the work of various philosophers…Ecopsychology today is less a formal discipline than an ethic of lament shared by people in many fields. If it has a core belief, it’s that our broken ties to the non-human world are the cuase of both the modern ecological crisis and a related epidemic of alienation and distress…”
{Theodore} Roszak (author of “The Voice of the Earth”) couldn’t figure out why so many people were willing to damage the planet – and why environmentalists usually failed in getting them to change their ways. Then he began to view our runaway spending and driving patterns as compulsive self-medication. Most people know such behavior hurts the natural world, he says, but they’re too hooked on the little relief it brings to stop…”
“Paul Shephard (“Nature and Madness” argues that our disregard for the earth deepens into a kind of insanity as we lose touch with the other animals that have played an age-old role in shaping the human mind. Worse yet, in Shepard’s view, this growing estrangement from our natural family has profoundly altered the way we raise and weducate children, especially boys. For complex reasons, the result is a culture whose men often claim both the right and the NEED to destroy other living things, in response to their own insecurities. Roszak agres: ‘I have also come to believe that, at its deepest level, the environmental crisis traces to the twisted dynamics of male gender identity.’”
Jeremiah Creedon, “The Greening of Tony Soprano: Even Mobsters feel the pain of ecological alienation”, Utne magazine, May-June 2003
d) WHAT’S SIMPLICITY GOT TO DO WITH IT?
I belong to a Voluntary Simplicity Circle, and it’s an integral part of my life and work as an ecotherapist. We talk about how to get off the merry-go-round of working more and more hours earning the money to spend on more and more expensive stuff.
Some resources for you and your clients:
www.simpleliving.net A great place to start. Links to many other simple living sites.
www.simplegoodlife.com Another great site from authors Paul and Sarah Edwards. They have an excellent definition of the simple good life: “have the time for what you love with those you love in a place, at a pace, and for a price you can afford.”
“The Circle of Simplicity: Return to the Good Life,” a great book by Cecile Andrews that describes how to start your own Simplicity Circle.
e) SOME THOUGHTS FROM THE “CONTRARY FARMER,” GENE LOGSDON
If you haven’t yet discovered “The Contrary Farmer’s Invitation to Gardening” by Ohio farmer Gene Logsdon, it’s a worthwhile read. Gene is a weather-bitten, hands-in-the-soil kind of guy and his thoughts are always provocative, especially for “armchair nature-lovers.”
“It seems to me that the only fruitful way to discuss the thorny problem of managing nature is to require everyone to do some serious gardening or farming before being allowed to debate the topic. If everyone had to produce at least a little food before buying any more food, the let-nature-take-its-course philosophy would quickly vanish. Everyone would then understand what it means to deal with nature in the concrete, not the abstract. Whatever our beliefs before gardening or farming, they will change after experience tempers either a previously naïve love of nature or a previously fearful dislike of nature. Something more practical, in the emotional and intellectual middle, will take center stage in how we define ‘living in harmony with nature.’”
He doesn’t let us avoid the reality that in nature creatures eat or are eaten, including us. “The lack of a sense of animal husbandry is apparent in the way so many humans shirk their responsibility as pet owners,” he scolds, citing the terrible statistics on the toll domestic cats take on native ground-nesting birds. The only good cat is a house cat, he believes. He also tells us we have to take responsibility for curbing the populations of animals that our unnatural way of living has allowed to proliferate beyond any reasonable balance – not just pets, but wild animals (and humans) too. He scoffs at those of us who put up bird houses for songbirds without addressing the plague of rats, raccoons etc.
Is he right? Are many of us (including ecotherapists) naïve tree-lovers without an awareness of what living on this planet “au naturel” would really mean?
But Gene isn’t just a scold, and he describes a new style of farming and gardening that is closer to the permaculture ideal, encouraging wildlife habitat and biodiversity as the sources of healing they are. And yes, he thinks you should include a few chickens in your backyard for their soil-stirring, manure and egg producing capabilities, but he leaves the choice up to you as to whether or not you eat the aging hens as coq au vin…
f) THE TRUMPETER: JOURNAL OF ECOSOPHY
Cool journal to check out: http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca
Linda Buzzell, M.A., M.F.T.
Licensed Marriage and Family TherapistSanta Barbara/ Los Angeles, California
Lbuzzell@aol.com
"Ecopsychology holds the promise of offering original practices for personal, social and ecological renewal."
Andy Fisher, author of "Radical Ecopsychology" (2002)
"How does health care change when symptoms are seen as signals from the larger world or signs of disconnection from it?"
Sarah A. Conn, Ph.D., The Ecopsychology Institute at the Center for Psychological & Social Change; Instructor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School.
