HEADLINES:
REPORT ON PSYCHOLOGY-ECOLOGY-SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE IN PORTLAND
ECOPSYCH EVENTS, COLLEGE PROGRAMS CAN NOW BE POSTED ON OUR WEBSITE!
Contents:
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH: Joanna Macy, Robert Greenway, Robert Rodale, Thomas Edison, Lisa and Carl McCrory
2. YOU CAN NOW POST YOUR UPCOMING ECOPSYCHOLOGY AND ECOTHERAPY EVENTS, CLASSES AND PROGRAMS DIRECTLY ON OUR WEBSITE!
3. REPORT ON PSYCHOLOGY-ECOLOGY-SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE by Renee Lertzman
4. NEARBY NATURE by Linda Buzzell
5. MARK SCHROLL’S NEW HISTORY OF ECOPSYCHOLOGY
6. FORGET PROZAC – GET YOUR HANDS IN THE SOIL!
7. NEW FILM ON PSYCHOLOGY OF MASS EXTINCTIONS
8. CRAIG CHALQUIST OFFERING SLIDE SHOW ON PLANETARY PSYCHOLOGY
9. INSTITUTE FOR INQUIRY CONCERNED ABOUT EMFs
10. COOL STUFF ON THE NET
a. Certificate in wilderness therapy
b. Saving the planet: empty gestures
c. Patients fight for right to fresh air
d. New resources for those who teach ecopsychology
e. Community garden heals mental ills
f. The 11th Hour and Generation Z
11. UPCOMING EVENTS: MARY-JAYNE RUST
12. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES
13. LINKS to check out, including our website at http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy where you’ll find current and past issues of this newsletter. 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).
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH
Act your age -- 6.5 billion years
Joanna Macy
[Ecopsychology is] a language drawn from the field of ecology, various psychologies, anthropology, and philosophy that expresses the human/nature relationship in enough depth to reveal the dynamics of why we are destroying our habitat.
Robert Greenway
What can be more valuable now than a small garden, free of synthetic fertilizers and pesticide poisons, yielding food that tastes as good as the vegetables and fruits we were able to buy in markets years ago? Valuable not only to the body but to the spirit.
Robert Rodale
I*d put my money on the sun and solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don*t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.
Thomas Edison in a 1931 conversation with his friends Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone. More on Edison’s opinions of wind and solar energy at http://www.energybulletin.net/30658.html
The only alternative energy that we use on our farm is gasoline. All the other energy sources, sun, wind, plants, and animals are standard energies of the Earth. *Alternative* is a term used by the people who manage *Status Quo*. It is part of a program on the main-frame of the Matrix. *Alternative* energy, medicine, agriculture, and lifestyles, are all truths that our culture cannot embrace at this time. I firmly believe that the success of a sustainable human culture depends on our recognizing the artificiality of the systems that prop up our modern lifestyles
Lisa and Carl McCrory
2. YOU CAN NOW POST YOUR UPCOMING EVENTS, COURSES AND EDUCATIONAL OFFERINGS DIRECTLY ON OUR WEBSITE!
Happily, we are receiving so many announcements of events, college programs and classes that we needed to come up with a better solution for publicizing them than waiting for a quarterly newsletter. We are now able to offer a place on our blog for announcing upcoming events, programs and classes that would be of interest to the ecotherapy community. Please go to: http://thoughtoffering.blogs.com/ecotherapy/ and click on the appropriate month in the left-hand column for classes or click on the appropriate month in the right-hand column to post classes or college programs. Then just add your event as a comment! As this is open to the public, we must make the standard disclaimer about not being responsible for the content, but hopefully the spam guard we've put in place will limit inappropriate content. As the blog is available year-round, please do check there often for new events and classes!
3. REPORT ON THE PSYCHOLOGY-ECOLOGY-SUSTAINABILITY CONFERENCE held June 8-10, 2007, Lewis and Clark College, Portland, Oregon by: Renee Lertzman
For three days in June, almost two hundred people from around the US and abroad gathered at Lewis and Clark College in Portland Oregon, to contemplate the intersections of psychology, ecology and sustainability. The conference, entitled Psychology-Ecology-Sustainability, was the fruition of a new collaboration between a leading edge community activism organization, the Center for Earth Leadership, and the Department of Counseling Psychology at Lewis and Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling. Hosted by co-organizer Professor Tod Sloan, director of the Department of Counseling Psychology at Lewis and Clark, the conference featured nationally renowned keynote speakers and forty breakout presentations, covering a wide range of topics, from wilderness psychology, neuroscience, and interior spaces to issues in mainstream counselling and ‘ecotherapy’ practices.
However, this was not your typical academic conference. Rather, the organizers sought to integrate theory and practice – not an easy feat – through bringing in an emphasis on practice and application, along with theoretical frameworks and conceptualizations. The commitment to creating something tangible, rather than just a pleasant gathering of likeminded individuals, was expressed in the official launch of Psychology for a Sustainable Future (PSF), a network to help evaluate and create a program of action to address the interface of mental health, environment, and consumer culture, as well as the selection of keynote speaker and presenters, representing both psychological and activist perspectives. The conference was the brainchild of Dick Roy, Executive Director of the Center for Earth Leadership. As an nationally known figure working in the sustainability movement for the past fourteen years, and co-founder of the influential Northwest Earth Institute, Roy often came across disconnection, denial, and the effects of technology in his everyday work. He realized these were fundamentally *psychological* issues; namely dissociation from nature and our environment, denial, despair, and the process of behavioral change. Roy decided to convene an initial meeting of psychologists and mental health professionals in Portland to get a sense of their interest in these topics, and to explore the ways in which psychologists and mental health professionals might be able to take a more active role in the sustainability movement.
As it happened, Roy*s initiative could not have come at a better time and place. Roy met with a group including eco-therapist Dr. Thomas Doherty, Professor Tod Sloan, psychologist Dr. Jeffrey Noethe, and psychology PhD candidate Malek Hall – all working in some capacity on ways to integrate psychology with environmental concerns. Their common goals focused on the need to help educate psychologists and mental health professionals generally about the critical intersection between psychology, ecology, and sustainability, and how these concepts could be integrated into their practice. Thus, the conference was set in motion, and PSF was born.
The timing was also right for revisiting the terrain of *ecopsychology*, which has come quite a long way over the past two decades. Today, the field has broadened and expanded to include such branches as conservation psychology, eco-therapy and environmental psychology. The conference featured keynotes by pioneering individuals who had helped put *ecopsychology* on the map – Allan Kanner, Ph.D. and Sarah Conn, Ph.D. – in addition to a rousing and inspiring talk by Steve Chase, Ph.D., Director of the Environmental Advocacy And Organizing Program in the Department of Environmental Studies at Antioch University New England. In addition, the forty presentations covered new fields of inquiry, specifically aimed for practitioners, such as recent research into the bases for biophilia, wilderness therapy programs and theoretical frameworks for a more ecologically holistic psychological orientation. However, this field remains in its early stages, and more work remains to be done in terms of moving psychology out of its traditional paradigms. As Tod Sloan expressed it, *As a profession, we tend to think too individualistically and in middle-class contexts. Our work has to be more political and address economic issues – that means looking at industrial production, foreign trade patterns, and consumption not just at the U.S. level, but globally. Psychology is just one part of the puzzle.*
The conference closed with a unique *Open Space* forum for participants to organize and network with one another, to create new projects for the *application* of ideas generated during the event. Several action projects were launched, which included: a committee to raise awareness and campaign against commercial marketing to children; a reading, discussion, and networking group in Portland, Green Minds; an ethics committee to address ethical dimensions of psychological work and environmental concerns; a committee to address integration of sustainability topics into psychology curricula; and notably, a new PSF consultation and training group, designed to offer affordable psychological resources to individuals and groups working on sustainability issues. Perhaps one of the most exciting outcomes of the PES conference was the formal launch of the PSF Network, which can now serve to facilitate and support these various initiatives and future developments.
To get involved, learn more information about PSF, or to see transcripts from the keynote presentations at the PES Conference, please visit www.earthleaders.org/psf/pes/transcripts
4. NEARBY NATURE by Linda Buzzell
While wilderness work has an honored and necessary place in the history and practice of ecotherapy and ecospirituality, I believe that in the future we will need to increasingly value *nearby nature.* Ecopsychology and wilderness therapy pioneer Robert Greenway has pointed out the fallacy of thinking that nature is merely *out there* somewhere and reminds us that wild nature also exists in our own bodies and psyches and is as close to us as the ant in the kitchen or the herb in a pot on the windowsill. Everything we eat, as *unnatural* as we try to make it through industrial processing, is, of course, *nature* as well. So there is no way NOT to be in nature. While we must do all that we can to preserve what little is left of untamed nature *out there,* in the post-petroleum era we can no longer count on easy, cheap transportation to way-off places on a whim. We will need to honor, cherish and connect with nearby nature. Richard Louv, in his book *Last Child in the Woods,* points out that children need small pockets of wildness near their homes in order to freely grow into nature-connected adults. And we adults too need our little bits of nearby wildness to heal our bodies, souls and psyches. Research from the University of Essex has demonstrated that walks in natural settings are as powerful anti-depressants as medications. Which brings me to one of my favorite ecotherapies: gardening. This simple age-old practice is inexpensive and open to everyone who has a sunny windowsill or a pocket sized balcony or tiny front yard. It can open up the world of natural living even to those trapped far from national parks or living in inner-city conditions. The simple catechism of seed to plant to blossom to fruit to food to seed-saving to compost and back again is so profound an eco-spiritual meditation that it transforms us as it reconnects us to the eternal circles of life on earth. Yes, it*s called horticultural therapy, but it*s so much more.
5. MARK SCHROLL’S NEW HISTORY OF ECOPSYCHOLOGY
Mark A. Schroll, Ph.D. has published *Wrestling with Arne Naess: A Chronicle of Ecopsychology*s Origins* in Athabasca University*s *The Trumpeter* journal (vol. 23, Number 1, 2007). It provides a fascinating account of the beginnings of our field and of Schroll’s own developing desire to explore *how, and in what directions, can we move beyond simply treating the symptoms of the world*s growing number of social and environmental crises?* Schroll calls on the field to step up to the plate and address the challenges we all face. He points out that *The ecopsychology movement has yet to come together as an established discipline or as a national or international organization. This is why so many diverse perspectives and approaches to the study of ecopsychology exist, because an association with a clear platform stating the goals of ecopsychology, with a journal and an annual conference where its evolving definition can be discussed, has yet to be organized.* http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/940/1353
6. FORGET PROZAC – GET YOUR HANDS IN THE SOIL!
A new study has discovered that bacteria found in the soil activate a group of neurons that produce the brain chemical serotonin. No wonder horticultural ecotherapy raises mood so effectively! http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070402102001.htm
7. *CALL OF LIFE* FILM ADDRESSES ECOPSYCHOLOGY ISSUES INVOLVED WITH MASS EXTINCTIONS
Call of Life: Facing the Mass Extinction is a documentary film in progress that explores the mass extinction, its six main causes, the cultural myths and values that drive it, the psychology that underpins it, and the latest insights into natural systems that could help us turn back the tide. The mass extinction is the cumulative result of many causes, all of which are related to human activity. In interviews with eminent scientists and field biologists, the filmmakers present the facts and evidence of the shocking decline. In interviews with leading psychologists, historians and anthropologists the filmmakers examine the inextricable links between the extinction crisis and our social and economic problems, and explore the ways in which culture and psychology have conspired to determine our collective and individual response to this situation. The film bridges disciplines to weave science, psychology, and cultural history into a clear and accessible story of our changing world. The audience is taken into the depths of the human psyche, through the toughest problems of our times and into the cutting edge of what nature has to teach us. The mass extinction is possibly the greatest threat that humanity has ever faced, and it is those of us alive today who have been given the responsibility - and great opportunity - of stopping it. To view a short version, go to www.speciesalliance.org/video.php The mention of how we need to change psychologically, culturally, is near the end of the video. Advisors to the film include ecopsychologists Mary Gomes and Allen Kanner, Paul Erlich, Julia Butterfly Hill, Richard Leakey, Joanna Macy, Jerry Mander and Brian Swimme.
8. CRAIG CHALQUIST OFFERING SLIDESHOW ON PLANETARY PSYCHOLOGY
Craig writes us: I teach a course called Planetary Psychology at John F. Kennedy University in the East Bay area near San Francisco, and I*ve recently put together a slideshow based on the material in my class. I did this to address what*s being left out of the climate change discussion, in fact, the key element: human psychology. Questions that should be asked include: What psychological forces were involved in our dysfunctional relationship to the planet? Which ones make for sustainability? What psychological factors should we take into account in terms of educating people about what to do about climate change? Which are most effective for promoting change?
My slideshow is called PLANETARY PSYCHOLOGY: SANITY IN THE BALANCE and discusses current research information about all of this. It also demonstrates how closely mental health is connected to planetary health. Let me know if you*re interested in hearing more about this. I’m writing this to begin to put the word out that somebody is addressing the psychology aspect of all this. I*ve been showing AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH to my students and very much admire its message.
Craig Chalquist, PhD
www.Terrapsych.com
Reengaging the Soul of Place
9. INSTITUTE FOR INQUIRY CONCERNED ABOUT EMFs
http://www.instituteforinquiry.org/inquiries/wireless.php
Electromagnetic fields have been described as the *newest, biggest, manmade environment.* What are electromagnetic fields (EMFs) and how are they created? What are the differences between EMFs that occur naturally and those generated by high voltage lines, household appliances, cellular antenna, WiFi and WiMax, or pulsed, phased-array radar? Does life have a bio-electrical basis? How sensitive are young, growing, and aging bodies to today*s EMF *soup*? Most of us have neither thought about nor imagined the electromagnetic spectrum and airwaves as a fabric of energies in which viruses, bacteria, plants, animals, and humans function. Nor have we thought about changing the EMFs around us through broadcast radio and tv, household appliances, and radar in the 20th century; or cellular antenna, WiFi and WiMax as we move into the 21st...
The Institute for Inquiry is a non-profit organization that presents a new generation of journalism that forefronts physical, biological, and cultural life. Using an innovative inquiry model, IFI produces news media with a participatory, global network that will *challenge us to learn how physical, biological, and cultural life flourishes; and to use such reasoning to inform economic and political aspirations.* Dr. Edward Casey on Eco-phenomenology
As part of the Institute of Inquiry*s process of inquiring into the impacts and meaning our entry into the wireless age, Dr. Ed Casey offers a powerful essay on eco-phenomenology at http://www.instituteforinquiry.org/inquiries/ecophenomenology.php Dr. Casey, who is on the Board of Directors of the Institute for Inquiry, defines Eco-phenomenology as *a new field in philosophy that advances awareness for all that occurs in the interface between a living ecology and human experiences of it.*
10. COOL STUFF ON THE NET
(a) Certificate in the therapeutic application of the wilderness and adventure experience Providing a practical and theoretical grounding in the key concepts, techniques and skills required to work therapeutically with wilderness and adventure experiences. 22 days of training over a 12 month period. For more information, phone 0781 8094311 or see http://www.an-turus.co.uk
(b) Saving the Planet: Empty Gestures by Nigel Pollitt Published on Thursday, January 25, 2007 by the Independent / UK Do you recycle - and then fly to New York for the weekend? It*s the inconsistency of our attempts to save the planet that really bugs Nigel Pollitt The psychology of our inconsistent environmental behavior http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0125-01.htm
(c) Boston Globe: Patients Fight for Right to Fresh Air We've got a long way to go when psychiatrists feel that keeping patients AWAY from nature is helpful to their mental health. http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/07/08/right_to_fresh_air_sought_for_patients?mode=PF
(d) New resource for those who teach ecopsychology http://www.teachgreenpsych.com/ Britain S. Scott, Ph.D. and Susan M Koger, Ph.D. have put together a great online resource: Teaching Psychology for Sustainability: A Manual of Resources
(e) Community garden heals mental ills http://www.smh.com.au/news/environment/a-little-therapy-from-nature/2007/07/23/1185043033377.html
(f) The *11th Hour* and Generation Z by Kelpie Wilson
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/091407K.shtml
Support groups are forming all over the country to help people go through the psychological process of despair and empowerment as we cope with the planetary crisis. A *Climate Change Roadshow* recently came through my town, offering information and resources for people to set up a local group.
Perhaps the most important thing that the despair and empowerment groups do is to encourage us to express our feelings, which include a profound grief at the state of the planet. When we have truly acknowledged our despair, we become initiated into the real world and maturity. As mature adults, we*ll be able to touch the earth again and look, unflinchingly, into the eyes of Generation Z.
11. UPCOMING EVENTS: ECOTHERAPIST MARY-JAYNE RUST
Mary-Jayne Rust is one of the most active ecotherapy practitioners in the UK. She is co-facilitating a number of ecopsychology events this year and giving many lectures.
Sept 30 – Oct 6, 2007: MJR & Dave Key: *Ecotherapy: Working with the Healing Power of Wild Places.* One week residential for anyone wishing to work with people outdoors to generate heart motivation for sustainable living.
Nov 2, 2007: *Internal Landscapes of Climate Change: Apathy, Action and Awakening,* a lecture for the Landscape Institute Annual conference on Climate Change, London. http://www.liconferences.org
Nov 3, 2007, *Ecopsychology: Bridging the Gap Between Environmental Crisis and Personal World.* Workshop. www.wpf.org.uk/wpfsite/training/events/Ecopsychology.html
Nov 17, 2007, *Climate on the Couch: Unconscious Processes in Relation to Our Environmental Crisis,* annual lecture for the Guild of Psychotherapists, London, UK www.guildofpsychotherapists.org.uk/lectures.html
*[M]an is hampered in his meeting of this environmental crisis by a severe and pervasive apathy which is largely based upon feelings and attitudes of which he is unconscious. The lack of analytic literature about this subject suggests to me that we analysts are also in the grip of this common apathy* Harold Searles 1979
Peoples* responses to environmental issues can become polarised between apathy and righteous action. Exploring the territory in between can feel like entering a minefield of emotions. How can we use insights from psychotherapeutic thinking to explore these extreme states, and the difficulties we face in the journey towards sustainable living? Mary-Jayne Rust is a Jungian Analyst (SAP) and an art therapist. She has been writing, lecturing and running workshops on the links between psychotherapy and environmental issues for the past decade.
www.mjrust.net
In 2008 Mary-Jayne will be doing a series of ecopsychology week-ends for therapists wishing to integrate ecopsychology into their work. Details on this and all other workshops are at www.mjrust.net. She also teaches an annual Ecopsychology module as part of the Centre for Human Ecology postgraduate masters degree, based in Edinburgh, Scotland.
12. ECOPSYCHOLOGY COURSES AND DEGREES
LEWIS AND CLARK UNIVERSITY, Portland, Oregon, USA. Lewis and Clark's Graduate School of Education and Counseling is offering a course entitled *Foundations of Ecopsychology* this fall. Taught by Thomas Doherty, the class provides an introduction to ecopsychology practices in counseling and surveys related research-based approaches, such as environmental and conservation psychology, that study the restorative effects of natural settings and ways that individuals develop environment identities. The course is open to graduate students and continuing education students. For further information, please visit www.lclark.edu/dept/cpsy/electives.html
NAROPA UNIVERSITY Naropa is now offering an MA in Environmental Leadership program. The curriculum was substantially revised this year, and is strongly based in ecopsychological theory and practice. For more information, contact Gene Dilworth, Administrative Director, Environmental Studies Department, Naropa University 303-245-4613 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!
13. 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…
