THE ECOTHERAPY NEWSLETTER – EARLY SPRING 2007
Healing our relationship with nature… Ecopsychology in Action …Psychotherapy as if the Whole Earth Mattered
© March 2007
Editor: Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, M.A., M.F.T., lbuzzell@aol.com
Founder, The International Association for Ecotherapy
Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, Santa Barbara and Los Angeles, California
OUR WEBSITE: http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy
REPORT ON NATURE/HUMAN NATURE CONFERENCE
Contents:
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH: Wendell Berry, James Hillman,
2. REPORT ON *NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE* CONFERENCE held March 16-19 in Santa Barbara, CA
3. UPCOMING PSYCHOLOGY ECOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE June 8-10 in Portland, Oregon
4. BOOK OF THE MONTH: *TERRAPSYCHOLOGY: Reengaging the Soul of Place* by Craig Chalquist
5. ECOPSYCHOLOGY NATURE MEDITATION CARDS from Carol Biggs
6. UPCOMING EVENTS: *Expressive Arts and the Earth*
7. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES: K. Lauren de Boer: *Nature, Creativity, and Identity: Finding Our Role in the Great Work.*
Endicott College offering new M. Ed. Online Course dealing with *The Great Work*
8. ON THE WEB: Cool websites to check out, including our website at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy where you*ll find current and past issues of this newsletter, and the International Community for Ecopsychology*s www.ecopsychology.org: the best source of ecopsychology info on the web!
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 ecotherapy (clinical/applied ecopsychology). If you'd like to be removed from this list, please just e-mail back. Or if you*d like to send e-mail addresses to add, news to pass along, or your insights, please do so! Joining is absolutely free.
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH:
The idea that we live in something called *the environment* is utterly
preposterous. . . . The world that environs us, that is around us, is
also within us. We are made of it; we eat, drink, and breathe it; it is
bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh.
Wendell Berry
My practice tells me that I can no longer distinguish clearly between neurosis of self and neurosis of world, psychopathology of self and psychopathology of world. Moreover, it tells me that to place neurosis and psychopathology solely in personal reality is a delusional repression of what is actually, realistically being experienced. This further implies that my theories of neurosis and categories of psychopathology must be radically extended if they are not to foster the very pathologies which my job is to ameliorate.
James Hillman
2) REPORT ON THE NATURE AND HUMAN NATURE CONFERENCE
On March 16-18 I attended the wonderful *Nature and Human Nature* conference at Pacifica Graduate Institute presented by the Foundation for Mythological Studies. It*s almost impossible to summarize three intense days of over 100 presentations from environmentalists, depth psychologists, ecopsychologists, ecotherapists and mythologists on the current global dilemma, but here are a few highlights (apologies to the speakers for the undoubtedly inadequate summaries of their work):
Pacifica*s founding president Steve Aizenstat welcomed the participants to the packed, sold-out conference by encouraging us to improve our skills at listening to the Others with whom we share this planet, including the landscape. He advocated experimenting with a depth approach by using metaphor and a mythological and aesthetic sensibility to explore new vistas, encouraging us to ask questions like *Who is visiting now?* Or *What*s happening here?* with an open, curious mind…
Andy Fisher, author of *Radical Ecopsychology,* gave a stirring presentation on *Ecopsychology as Radical Praxis,* emphasizing the importance of developing practices as well as theory. He said that both unreflective practice and impractical theory are impotent, that we need both to be effective.
He sees ecopsychology not as a new branch of psychology but as part of a larger movement for social change. He made a few powerful points: 1) He feels we need an ecopsychology based on critical social theory and believes that psyche and society are split like psyche and nature. 2) We need to replace therapists with elders and to train current therapists to be elders. Paul Sheperd says that the ecological crisis is a crisis of immaturity. James Hillman points out that we*ve had over 100 years of therapy and the world*s getting worse. Fisher believes that therapy is a weak instrument for social change. 3) We need a way to keep our hearts open. Buddhism and eco-socialism were discussed. 4) We can start by transforming our relationship to food. Fisher commented on how pioneering ecopsychologist Robert Greenway became a farmer and talked about the importance of the collective and individual refusal of industrial food. Fisher sees ecopsychology as a program for overcoming dualism with its aim being an ecological society. EP can also be seen as political education, so that people can come to see the connection between their suffering and the suffering of the planet.
Another powerful speaker was David Abram, author of *The Spell of the Sensuous,* who held the audience spellbound with his poetic depictions of nature and her moods. He reminded us that *We*re immersed in the mystery… our body is continuous with Earth*s body and our psyche is continuous with the larger collective Psyche* which includes the more than human as well as the human. *We live within the Psyche of the world.* He reminded us that the root of the word psyche relates to breathe, wind. He evoked the particularities of each locality, the sentience of the land. Each place is *uniquely intelligent,* has a *style of sentience* of its own and is *a unique state of mind or psyche.* He talked about the psychological and physiological transitions that happen as we move from place to place and how on a bicycle we can sense the different air, the different mood of a new location but that car travel allows us only visual sensation to assist our transition. And air travel*s abrupt dislocations are *a recipe for madness.*
Ecophilosopher Ed Casey gave a beautiful presentation called *Living on the Edge* which explored the deep meanings of place, border, boundary and edge. Susan Griffin (*Women and Nature*) gave an eloquent talk on *ecologies of soul.*
The ever-amazing James Hillman spoke on *Nature in the Doghouse.* A few Hillmanisms of note: *Humans touch nature through depression.* *Eating is evolution. Evolution is eating.* *Nature loves bones and eats the dead.* Taking the dog as one metaphor for nature, the erudite Hillman explored the deep meanings of *dog* as cynic, as unclean animal that digs up dead bones or eats the dead, Cerberus, Anubis, nature as Thanatos, spirit hidden in matter and much more…
Jungian analyst Jerome Bernstein talked about his excellent new book *Living in the Borderland* and the important issues of ego-inflation and self-destructiveness in our culture. He believes that something is now emerging from the collective unconscious that is changing us, something that is being sensed by the *canaries in the mine* among us. He also told us that *all healing begins with witnessing… we are entering the age of collective consciousness and … the environmental movement must make room for Psyche’s role in this transformation.*
Marc Bekoff, Professor of Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, warmed and saddened our hearts with his moving presentation on *Animal Emotions and Why They Matter,* in which he explored both the intimate bonding and communication possible in our relationships with animals and also the depths of depravity to which we can sink. He and famed ethologist Jane Goodall co-founded Ethologists for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Ecofeminist philosopher Carolyn Merchant, author of many books including *The Death of Nature* and Chair of the Division of Society and Environment at UC Berkeley, emphasized the importance of a new partnership ethic with Nature.
Ernst von Weizsacker, Dean of the University of California at Santa Barbara*s Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management and former member of the German parliament, gave an important talk on *Cutting Resource Consumption in Half While Doubling Wellbeing,* emphasizing the importance of finding a middle ground (the Social Market Economy) between the extremes of the Pure Market Economy and New Socialism.
Rick Tarnas, (*The Passion of the Western Mind,* *Cosmos and Psyche*), the founding director of the graduate program in Philosophy, Cosmology and Consciousness at the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco, gave a heartfelt presentation on *Approaching the Moral Challenge of our Age* in which he addressed issues of hope and hopelessness. He identified the disenchantment of matter (viewing the planet as non-living dead stuff with no soul or Psyche) as a deep cause of the emptiness that has resulted in our current *techno-consumerist frenzy.* *We can never get enough of what we don’t really need.*
Craig Chalquist, author of the new book *Terrapsychology: Reengaging the Soul of Place,* gave an eloquent presentation on *Going Out as Going In: Sharing Terra’s Psychology* in which he commented on how we can tap in to the connections between particular places, with all their historical and natural stories, and the human cultures and individual psychologies that are prevalent in those locations.
I gave a presentation on *Ecotherapy: Psyche and Nature in a Circle of Healing,* addressing the current *greening* of psychotherapy in its many manifestations.
Dean LaCoe, a recovery counselor at the Santa Barbara Council on Alcoholism, gave an excellent and provocative ecotherapy presentation on *Addressing Oil Addiction with Substance Abuse Treatment.*
Other presentations addressed topics such as *Recovering Indigenous Mind,* *Awakening to Ecocide* (Dr. Tim LaSalle), *The Longing for Sacred Landscapes,* *The Archaic Mind: The Confluence Between Jungian Thought and Evolutionary Psychology,* Equine Assisted Therapy, *Gyn/Ecology* (women and nature)…
And of course there was much, much more wonderful stuff which I don*t have room to summarize here… The conference had over 100 presentations by keynote, plenary and parallel sessions speakers – a veritable banquet laid out for us by the Foundation for Mythological Studies’ Dr. Lori Pye, Pacifica professor Dr. Ginette Paris and Dr. Druscilla French. Kudos to these amazing women!
If you are as frustrated by these short descriptions as I am, you can order audio CDs of the various speeches from www.conferencerecording.com Or find more information at www.mythology.org
3. DON*T MISS THE NEXT EXCITING EP CONFERENCE!
*PSYCHOLOGY ECOLOGY SUSTAINABILITY* June 8-10 in Portand, OR
This conference will be held at Lewis and Clark College in Portland, Oregon, USA on June 8-10, 2007. Go to www.earthleadershipcenter.org/psf/pes for details. The conference is co-sponsored by the Center for Earth Leadership and the Department of Counseling Psychology, Graduate School of Education and Counseling, Lewis & Clark College.
As psychologists and mental health professionals, we have a special role to play in the great human endeavor to create a sustainable future. Join us for three days of presentations and small group discussions, as we consider the critical intersection between psychology, ecology, and sustainability. Through our dialogue, we hope to distill the essential components of this intersection and address three central questions:
1. Psychological concepts, theories, and research findings that are directly relevant to understanding human-nature relationships and the health benefits of green spaces; addressing the mental health issues related to consumerism, ecological degradation, and the unhealthy use of technology; minimizing hopelessness and despair, overcoming denial, and inspiring change; improving the efficiency and effectiveness of grassroots sustainability initiatives.
2. New directions in research, therapy, and professional practices for psychologists and mental health professionals. These directions may be inspired by work in psychology, environmental science, or the sustainability movement.
3. How psychologists and mental health professionals can become involved in actively applying our knowledge and experience to promote sustainable lifestyles, grassroots efforts, and political initiatives.
To receive a conference invitation and information on registration, lodging, and continuing education opportunities, please contact Meghan Mix at the Center for Earth Leadership at meghan@nwei.org or 503-227-2807 or visit www.earthleadershipcenter.org/psf/pes.
4. BOOK OF THE MONTH: TERRAPSYCHOLOGY: REENGAGING THE SOUL OF PLACE by Craig Chalquist
Craig Chalquist*s new book *Terrapsychology: Reengaging the Soul of Place,* published by Spring Journal Books, is an extraordinarily original and thought-provoking combination of depth psychology and ecopsychology.
Chalquist takes a Jungian/Hillmanian/mythological and depth psychological approach to exploring the complex relationship between psyche and place, introducing a new approach that he calls *Terrapsychology.* He details this new field*s many areas of focus, including fascinating topics like *archetypal geography* and *psychocartography* (charting the psyche of place).
The book*s goal is to teach us how to listen to recurring symbolic resonances between ourselves and the presence, voice, or soul of places and things which embody the animation of the world.
Among its many riches, *Terrapsychology* offers one of the best histories of ecopsychology that I*ve seen. A chapter entitled *Widening Rejoinings: From Psychology to Ecopsychology and Beyond* covers our *ecopsychological forebears* as well as actual EPers.
Amazon.com has info at
To hear an interview with Craig, go to http://resistanceisfertile.ca/civilization.html and scroll to the bottom of the page.
In this interview, Craig talks about the combining of depth psychology with ecopsychology, and how we can no longer leave separate the political, ecological, and psychological. Much of the interview explores the ideas within the field of terrapsychology, a fairly new word with very ancient roots. In Craig*s words, Terrapsychology describes the study of the presence, soul, or *voice* of place: what the ancients knew as its genius loci or indwelling spirit.
This perspective emerged from five years of qualitative research into how local ecological and historical woundings resonate symbolically into the lives of a place*s current inhabitants. Polluted bays parallel polluted moods; congested freeways congest the free ways of connection; apartment complexes rise again in personal complexes and places of insulation.
*A million years of our prehistory spent wired into the world and meshed within its elaborate ecological communities, and then, suddenly, in a mere sliver of time: a world of fences and constructs and artifacts to keep out weather, weeds, and wolves. But what if the full development of our humanness depends on contact with a nonhuman world? What if animals inform our cries and gestures, birds give wings to thought, lightning offers fire, beavers building techniques, the wind and rain and stars their worlds of meaning and image and myth? How can we mature organically if we grow up in a mechanical and abstract world so largely of our own making, so much of it devoid of the plant and animal and mineral presences that nourished our ancestors so intimately?*
Craig's website is terrapsych.com.
5. ECOPSYCHOLOGY NATURE MEDITATION/EDUCATION CARDS!
Hi Linda,
My name is Carol Biggs, M.S. Applied Ecopsychology/Integrated Ecology (through Dr. Mike Cohen's degree program) residing in Juneau, Alaska...one of the easiest locations in planet Earth to experience the wilderness within, through the wilderness without. Dr. Cohen will certainly validate my authenticity as an Alaskan nature counselor/educator.
I have recently self published nature meditation/education cards, entitled Nature's Gifts (through 52 senses)...a deck of 52 cards...one for each week of any year, featuring one of 53 natural senses (I have not experienced the 53rd sense); beautifully designed on recycled paper (ISBN: 978-09669192-2-6; $12.95 per deck plus postage, with wholesale prices available).
A portion of sales for each card deck is contributed for scholarships to Mike Cohen's Project NatureConnect degree programs...so that people who want an education in this most natural and healthy field will benefit.
People love the cards and use them daily for developing and healing relationships with themselves and others through personally experiencing Nature, as we were intended.
Here is a sample card:
Nature's gift of power
Two magnificent tall spruce trees overwhelm me with their stature and grace. Walking on, I thank nature for gifts of a multitude of intelligent abilities: beauty, form, color, design, texture, breath, weather, motion and others. A tidal wave of powerful energy surges inside. Filters through which I ordinarily view life drop. For a moment I feel my inner world fragmenting and rearranging into a shimmering multifaceted jewel of creative energy.
Insight
Allowing stories and filters to drop away provides nature the opportunity to shift and rearrange all kinds of energy into creative
expression--for the enhancement of life's journey.
The cards can be purchased from:
Carol Biggs Alaska Nature Connection
PO Box 20271
Juneau, AK 99802
phone/fax 907-586-2453
email: aknature@alaska.net
I have also published the following which have sold out through 4 printings
Wild Edible & Medicinal Plants, Alaska, Canada & Pacific Northwest Rainforest
vols 1 & 2
ISBNs 0-9669192-0-3 and 0-9669192-1-1
Thank you, Linda, for all that you are doing to support the world in which we live and share.
Carol Biggs
6. UPCOMING EVENTS
The International Expressive Arts Therapy Association Conference
ieata07@appstate.edu
http://www.ieata.org
* Expressive Arts and the Earth, Ancient Mountains, Whispering Waters, Sacred Stones.*
The International Expressive Arts Therapy Association
Conference in conjunction with North Carolina Arts for Health will be
held on May 23-27, 2007 at The Broyhill Inn & Conference Center located
on the campus of Appalachian State University in Boone, NC. The
program will include over 60 concurrent workshops, performances, local
crafts, a research poster session and live music and dancing. Keynote
panel includes international leaders in the field of Expressive Arts
Therapy. Register before February 15, 2007 and receive a $75 discount.
there will be many exciting workshops highlighting
ecotherapy and the relationship with the earth in healing.
7. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES
Course offering: *Nature, Creativity, and Identity: Finding Our Role in the Great Work.*
K. Lauren de Boer, former editor of EarthLight magazine writes:
I*m very pleased to invite you to be part of creating a unique online co-learning community.
From April 1 through May 31, I will be facilitating a course through the Institute for Educational Studies / Endicott College called *Nature, Creativity, and Identity.* The aim of the course is to explore our role in the Great Work as articulated by Thomas Berry and others.
If you*ve ever questioned what your role might be, or if you simply want to deepen your understanding of what the Great Work entails, I hope you*ll join with us in this special inquiry. The course draws on my ten years as editor of EarthLight Magazine and on the a combination of the thought of Thomas Berry, Elizabet Sahtouris, David Whyte, Brian Swimme, Meg Wheatley, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Loren Eiseley, Paul Shepard, Lynn Margulis, and David Bohm.
We will use a type of online dialogue based on David Bohm*s work that facilitates a practice of reflective listening and response, encouraging the emergence of shared meaning. You can capture and print your own comments and those of your classmates for further reflection when the course is complete. This method and the online campus are the creation of educators Phil Gang and Marsha Morgan who have used them with great results for the past 12 years.
HOW DO I SIGN UP?
For a full course description, more information, or to sign up, go to http://www.ties-edu.org/greatwork/index.html , call 888-722-4547, or email ties@endicott.edu.
This course can be taken for credit if you are interested in enrolling in the full M.Ed. in Integrative Learning, a program that expands on this single course offering.
I hope to hear from you and look forward to our interaction,
K. Lauren de Boer
Former Editor, EarthLight Magazine
UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE, Glasgow, Scotland. Ecopsychology: How can psychology help us understand and heal the environmental crises? Leads to a Certificate of Professional Practice. A four day residential workshop in a rural location from 29 Mar to 2 Apr, 2007 plus private study.
http://www.che.ac.uk/mambo/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=179&Itemid=188 University of Strathclyde.
NAROPA UNIVERSITY, Boulder, Colorado, USA. Ecopsychology and Environmental Psychology is a course taught by John V. Davis. See http://www.johnvdavis.com/ep/index.htm
Ecology and psychology, having grown up on different sides of the mountain, met one day in the thick brush at the ridge line separating their home territories. Their first contact was awkward and hesitant. They began to circle, they danced, and finally they joined. Their offspring are twins. One is vigorous, skillful, joyous, and sustainable environmental action. The other is the wonder, intimacy, healing, expansion, and grace of finding ourselves at home in the world. They realized, too, that there was much work to be done together. There were other such liaisons in the thick brush at the edges, but this one was particularly juicy, wild, and fertile.
ONLINE COURSE: spring semesters. DEEP ECOLOGY IN CONTEXT. This course provides the background for the emerging field of ecopsychology. It is in fact a required course for completion of the Master of Arts in Transpersonal Psychology with an Ecopsychology Concentration at Naropa University. If you have ever wondered where ecopsychology came from, what its philosophical roots are, or what related fields and movements might be, this course reveals all! Although it is officially a graduate course, it is open to everyone who has had at least two years of college, and it can be taken for credit or noncredit from anywhere in the world. Check out the course description at http://www.naropa.edu/distance/courses/ENV520e.htm
ANIMAS VALLEY INSTITUTE, Durango, Colorado. Founded by psychologist and wilderness guide Bill Plotkin, the author of Soulcraft, the Institute offers a nature-path to spirituality and soul development. www.animas.org
ENDICOTT COLLEGE, Beverly, Massachusetts and The Institute for Educational Studies (TIES) now offer a new variation of their online Master of Education in Integrative Learning program that may be of special interest to students of ecopsychology. This initiative is being led by Core Faculty member Lauren de Boer, former editor of EarthLight Magazine, and additional faculty with backgrounds in adult and childhood education, science, philosophy, and social change.
Established in 1996, this innovative *all on-line* program has attracted learners from all over the world. Students have always chosen an Emphasis Area that focuses on their individual interests and accounts for one third of the credits toward graduation. In this new program, this Emphasis Area is developed from the learner*s Great Work, or *allurement,* a passionate life interest to which they feel committed. The larger framework for integrative learning is provided by the remainder of the course, which is identified as *eco-cosmological.* An eco-cosmological context is one which stretches our thinking beyond *sustainability* by presenting cosmology as the fundamental and unifying context for the learner as an integral part of Earth's larger ecological community.
For more information: www.ties-edu.org
PACIFICA GRADUATE INSTITUTE, Santa Barbara, California. Dr. Ed Casey teaches *Psyche and Nature,* which has three parts: exploring ancient notions of the natural and the psychical in myth and philosophy; the ingrediency of place in nature and contemporary life; the wild and wilderness. Water as a basic element is discussed at each phase throughout. Authors range from Plato to Gary Snyder, Ivan Illich to Keith Basso, Susan Griffin to Paul Shepard. www.pacifica.edu
PROJECT NATURE CONNECT*S INSTITUTE OF GLOBAL EDUCATION now has grants that can provide FULL FUNDING of a degree or certification program for those who need it. PNC offers many excellent programs in nature-connected counseling, education and self-help. http://www.ecopsych.com
Note: I keep an ongoing list of college and university programs that offer ecopsychology courses and/or degrees: if you’d like to receive the list, please e-mail me. Also, if you’re teaching a class, let me know!
8. ON THE WEB…
* INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR ECOTHERAPY. Our website at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy has current and past issues of Ecotherapy News. Many, many heartfelt thanks to ecopsychology maven Heather Witham for creating and hosting our site! Heather is an amazingly creative person who has some wonderful web offerings and gifts for us all. Check out: www.mymoonster.com a delightful way to get yourself back in sync with nature*s cycles and explore radical ecopsychology.
* ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUPS: Join one or both of our LIST-SERVS where you can discuss activist ecopsychology with others interested in this topic:
act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is working collectively to develop ecopsychological resources to assist in The Great Turning from life-destroying society to life-sustaining culture.
chat_act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com This group is a chat group where activist ecopsychological folk can discuss their activities and interests.
* INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOR ECOPSYCHOLOGY. If you haven’t yet discovered it, check out www.ecopsychology.org: the best ecopsychology site on the web! Read *Gatherings* journal; sign up for the list serv to chat, check out the ecopsychology blog at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ice_seeds. Sign up on the Practitioners page to tell the world about your ecopsychology or ecotherapy practice...
* Check out the great academic search engine: http://scholar.google.com. Look up *ecopsychology,* *ecotherapy* for lots of interesting stuff…
* * * * *
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.
How is it that psychology is the last of the social sciences to acknowledge the environmental crisis?
John Seed
Psychology, so dedicated to awakening human consciousness, needs to wake itself up to one of the most ancient human truths: we cannot be studied or cured apart from the planet.
James Hillman
