HEADLINES:
THE EMERGENCE OF TRANS-SPECIES PSYCHOLOGY
PUBLICATION OF ECOTHERAPY: HEALING WITH NATURE IN MIND
Contents:
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH: Alan Chadwick, John Davis, David Orr
2. ECOTHERAPY: HEALING WITH NATURE IN MIND now available for preorder at amazon.com
3. THE EMERGENCE OF TRANS-SPECIES PSYCHOLOGY. May conference.
4. LEFT IN THE DARK by Graham Gynn and Tony Wright
5. EARTH-BASED PSYCHOLOGY by Arnold Mindell
6. DANIEL PINCHBECK ON COMMUNITY ECOTHERAPY AND THE NEED FOR SUSTAINABLE LIFE-WAYS
7. JOANNA MACY AND BILL PLOTKIN, JAN 23, FEB 7
8. THE SILENCE OF THE GREENS: The taboo topic of overpopulation
9. TOWARD PSYCHOLOGIES OF LIBERATION: a book review by Craig Chalquist, Ph.D.
10. DIALOGUE WITH A STUDENT
11. THE PASSING OF ARNE NAESS, FOUNDER OF DEEP ECOLOGY
12. INT’L CONFERENCE IN MAY ON ECOLOGY AND PROFESSIONAL HELPING. David Orr, Joanna Macy
13. POST YOUR ECOPSYCHOLOGY EVENTS, COURSES AND DEGREES ON OUR WEBSITE.
14. 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 http://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
We are the living links in a life force that moves and plays around and through us, binding the deepest soils with the farthest stars. – organic garden pioneer Alan Chadwick
There is a deeply bonded and reciprocal communion between humans and nature. The denial of this bond is a source of suffering both for the physical environment and for the human psyche, and the realization of the connection between humans and nature is healing for both. This reconnection includes the healing potential of contact with nature, work on grief and despair about environmental destruction, ecotherapy, psychoemotional bonding with nature as a source of environmental action, and the cultivation of sustainable lifestyles. -- John Davis
The sum total of violence wrought by people who do not know who they are because they do not know where they are is the global environmental crisis. – David Orr, Ecological Literacy
2. ECOTHERAPY: HEALING WITH NATURE IN MIND is now available for preorder on amazon.com
Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, edited by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist, will be published by Sierra Club Books in May 2009.
This anthology is the follow-up to Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, edited by Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes and Allen Kanner, also published by Sierra Club Books (in 1995). It is the first book to take a broad approach to the practice of applied ecopsychology and ecotherapy. It includes a foreword by David Orr and essays by Robert Greenway, Theodore Roszak, Andy Fisher, Sarah Conn, Stephen Aizenstat, Bill McKibben, Mary-Jayne Rust, Richard Louv, Mary Gomes, Shepherd Bliss, John Scull, Joanna Macy, Ralph Metzner, Richard Heinberg and many others.
3. COMMON MINDS, COMMON HEARTS: The Emergence of Trans-species Psychology
An upcoming conference May 8-10, 2009 at Pacifica Graduate Institute in Santa Barbara is the launching pad for the new field of trans-species ecopsychology. Entitled *Common Minds, Common Hearts: the Emergence of Trans-species Psychology,* the event is being presented by Pacifica in collaboration with OPUS Archives and Research Center, which holds the papers of luminaries like Joseph Campbell, Ma rija Gimbutas, James Hillman and Marion Woodman, and The International Association for Animal Trauma and Recovery. The conference brings together psychologists, neuroscientists, ethologists and animal therapists to explore the continuous nature of psyche throughout the animal kingdom.
*The discovery of psychobiological continuity across species has liberated psychology from its role as a solely human enterprise. We have awakened into the new, exciting trans-species world of heart and mind. Science has shown how elephants, parrots, dolphins, chimpanzees, octopi, and myriad animals feel the rainbow of emotions that humans experience, and how animal minds extend to frontiers only beginning to be explored. New knowledge has also revealed that like us, other animals are vulnerable to psychological suffering, much of which modern humanity has imposed. Intellectual discovery compels re-creation of ethos and practices that embrace all species. Trans-species psychology provides one such path: a species-inclusive approach to ecopsychology that links neurosciences, ethology, and other psychologies.
The conference brings together theorists and practitioners from diverse perspectives to explore trans-species psychology and implications of the radical paradigm shift upon which we are now embarked. The conference celebrates the new found kinship and a common commitment to end violence affecting all species. It also marks the launching of the International Association for Animal Trauma Recovery (IAATR), a professional society for health care providers, sanctuary professionals, conservation scientists, students, and others dedicated to the care of all animals and the creation of a world built on species parity.*
For more information, go to http://www.pacifica.edu and click on Public Programs and Conferences.
4. LEFT IN THE DARK: The Biological Origins of the Fall from Grace
by Graham Gynn and Tony Wright.
Can modern human brain research help us understand how we got into this huge environmental mess? Left in the Dark offers a provocative and original answer to the most important question of our time.
Here*s how Richard Heinberg (Peak Everything) explains the importance of this book: *Graham Gynn and Tony Wright follow the implications of modern brain research to an astounding conclusion: that our culturally-acquired left-brain dominance has cost us our sanity, and that ancient myths about a fall from grace actually record neurochemical events within our skulls. But if we have alienated ourselves from nature and our original state of wholeness, there may be a way back. This is a startling book that makes us rethink the most fundamental issues of religion, psychology and philosophy.*
The book investigates the evolution of the human brain and its incr easing dependence on only half of our capabilities.
5. EARTH-BASED PSYCHOLOGY: Path Awareness from the teachings of Don Juan, Richard Feynman, and Lao Tse by Arnold Mindell
I’m briefly noting this new book because the first part of its title might erroneously convince you that it is about ecopsychology. It*s really a *spiritual guide* that explores what the author calls *path awareness,* or *the ability to sense where to turn at any given moment.* Useful, yes, but not perhaps what I had initially hoped for from a book of this title.
Mindell discusses *the directional wisdom of the earth* and says *our psychology is intimately linked not only to disembodied dreams and feelings but also to the nature of space and to the manner in which our bodies relate to this magical planet. In a way, psychology is an aspect of cosmology.* I’m not sure I agree that feelings are disembodied – and eco-dreamwork experts might say the same of dreams. But the idea of sensing the right path to take is very appealing.
6. DANIEL PINCHBECK ON COMMUNITY ECOTHERAPY AND THE NEED FOR SUSTAINABLE LIFE-WAYS
*We are facing a time of great change and spiritual challenge. Those of us who have undergone a process of awakening and initiation during the last decades will be called upon to act as truth-tellers, leaders and compassionate caretakers for the multitudes that have been duped and deluded by the system. We may have to abandon our comfort zones and personal ambitions to be of service to the situation as it unfolds.
*In the time available to us before the situation becomes critical, priorities include strengthening local communities and disseminating techniques of self-sufficiency, such as getting many more people to grow their own food. It is tragic that our mass media continues to act as a mechanism of distraction. The media could be used to explain to people how our world is changing, to teach them the basic life skills that we forfeited a few generations ago, and to imprint new behavior patterns based on sustainable life-ways. Perhaps public broadcasting, at least, can be repurposed for this necessary effort.*
read more at..... http://consciouschoice.com/2008/12/pinchbeck0812.html
7. JOANNA MACY AND BILL PLOTKIN
Friday January 23rd. Joanna Macy & Bill Plotkin addressed *In a Dark Time, the Eye Begins to See,* an evening conversation presented by the San Francisco Integral Life Practice.
Every stage in life*s journey brings change and challenge, and every consciously embraced passage, even in a dark time, comes with a gift from the soul to the self and to the more-than-human world. In these decades of the Great Turning, our world urgently calls for the contributions of ecocentric visionaries and mature artisans with dark-adjusted eyes that can detect the shape of a sustainable and sustaining future.
Joanna Macy is one of this era*s most revered environmental and spiritual leaders. Bill Plotkin is a depth psychologist and wilderness guide whose book Soulcraft was hailed by Thomas Berry as, *…an authentic masterwork.*
This conversation was held Friday, Jan 23 at 7 to 9 pm at First Unitarian Universalist Church, 1187 Franklin Street, San Francisco (cross street is Geary).
Joanna Macy, PhD, teacher and author, is the creator of the Work That Reconnects. Drawing from Buddhist practices, systems theory, and love for life, her workshops empower environmental and social activists worldwide. Her many books include Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World; World As Lover, World As Self; Widening Circles, A Memoir; and translations of Rilke's poetry.
Bill Plotkin, PhD, is the founder and president of Animas Valley Institute. He has guided thousands of people through initiatory passages in nature since 1980. Currently an ecotherapist, depth psychologist, and wilderness guide, he leads a variet y of experiential, nature-based individuation programs. He is the author of Soulcraft: Crossing into the Mysteries of Nature and Psyche and Nature and the Human Soul: Cultivating Wholeness and Community in a Fragmented World.
On Saturday Feb 7 at the same location, Bill Plotkin and Jonathan Gustin will offer a one day workshop on The Soulcentric Developmental Wheel & Integral Awakening Process. Contact http://www.jonathangustin.com for more info.
8. THE SILENCE OF THE GREENS: The taboo topic of overpopulation
*An urgent sense of planetary limits was a driving force behind the environmentalism of the 1960s and 1970s but in today*s environmental orthodoxy it has been partially or wholly supplanted by a faith in technology or lifestyle changes. It*s only a short step, therefore, to saying that human numbers don’t really matter: it*s how those human numbers live and, more importantly, consume that counts.*
A powerful article by David Nicholson-Lord in Satish Kumar*s wonderful UK magazine Resurgence tackles the touchy subject of overpopulation and population overshoot and explores why environmentalists shy away from facing up to the fact that the food and environmental crises are directly attributable to human overpopulation.
And what about ecopsychologists and ecotherapists? Have we faced this difficult issue and how can we help our communities and cultures deal with it?
http://www.resurgence.org/magazine/article2651-The-Silence-of-the-Greens.html
9. TOWARD PSYCHOLOGIES OF LIBERATION, a book review by Craig Chalquist, Ph.D.
As I write this review, I have before me an online piece of research arguing that the blink rate of political candidates correlates with whether they win the election. Election Day is three days off. After decades of involvement in the field of psychology, the disgust rising in me has a familiar sourness to it. Why are psychologists tabulating how often a conservative blinks but saying nothing about his reactionary authoritarianism, his angry impulsivity, his patriarchal condescension towards women, or his Nuremberg Rally style of vicious scapegoating? Is blinking (a metaphor if ever there was one) all that psychologists have to tell us about the cultural and political conditions under which we live?
No. TOWARD PSYCHOLOGIES OF LIBERATION represents decades of collaborative work between two psychologists who have traveled the world to witness and help build socially engaged psychological practices and networks that address poverty, genocide, environmental devastation, and other globalized catastrophes too huge to fit into the therapist’s office.
Arguing against colonial models of the autonomous self that move health and pathology into the heads of individuals instead of tracking them in our relations with each other, Watkins and Schulman call for and describe emerging psychologies that deal with people as they really live: embedded in contexts of cultural, ecological, and political forces that frame and disrupt their lives. Drawing on interdisciplinary sources (the arts, the humanities) and on local work by those who fight for justice and sovereignty, the liberation psychologies described in this book=2 0hold social justice and mental health together in ongoing experiments and envisionings of the kinds of societies that meet human needs while respecting those of the planet. In this kind of work, people are encouraged to dream up their own ideas about how to live together, to try out new forms of attachment and belonging, and to come up with their own values and norms instead of being the passive recipients of normative models imposed by “experts” from the top down.
A key ingredient in liberatory work is dialog: the invitation of all voices to the table. Psychologies of liberation create *public homeplaces* (hooks, Belenky) where normally marginalized voices and visions can be shared safely in ongoing conversations that create community. These dialogs also foster the *critical consciousness* (Freire, Martin-Baro) to break through the internalized fatalisms of oppressive social conditions and begin to entertain a conscious desire for new ways to live humanely together. Such conversational enclaves also open spaces for practicing new roles that give the performer a regenerated sense of agency and personal efficacy. As the authors state it:
*Here the role of the psychologist becomes that of a convener, a witness, a coparticipant, a mirror, and a holder of faith for a process through which those who have been silenced may discover their own capacities for historical memory, critical analysis, utopian imagination, and transformative social action. The psychologist might bring to the table theories and histories that have been developed in the past, but they will be *relativized* and *critically revised* in each local arena where they may or may not apply. Truth in this new epistemology is democratized.*
Psychologies of liberation do not confine themselves to far-off places or *third world* countries. As the recent economic downturn, bail-outs for banks, foreclosures rising into the millions, and outright deregulatory pillaging of the American national treasury have demonstrated for all to see, tottering empires eventually turn on their own citizens. By contrast, participatory action research changes institutions from the inside out by involving everyone to be present and available for transformation through participatory dialog and engaged imagination, pooling new knowledge about alternatives and fresh possibilities.
Craig Chalquist, PhD is Core Faculty at JFK University in the San Francisco Bay Area. Visit http://www.chalquist.com for more information.
To order this book by phone: (888) 330-8477
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Ecotherapy News readers can use the promo code P356ED to get a 20% discount
10. DIALOGUE WITH A STUDENT
I was contacted a while ago by a student interested in nature therapy, Trista Dymond, a Senior with an Interiors Major at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan. We had an interesting dialogue.
Trista: I am a student at College for Creative Studies in Detroit, MI. Curren tly, I am designing a nature therapy center for an inner city location. Thus, I am doing some research on ecopsychology and the effects of nature therapy. I came across your postings on thoughtoffering.blogs.com and was wondering if I could pick your brain about something you addressed in your most recent ecotherapy newsletter.
Linda: Thanks for writing. It sounds like you're doing very worthwhile work!
Trista: You had written: *It becomes clear that what happens to nature for good or ill impacts people and vice versa, leading to new methods of individual and community psychotherapeutic diagnosis and treatment.* I believe this statement is somewhat downplayed for those living in urban environments.
Linda: Nature affects the health and well-being of people in the cities just as much as it does in the country, even if city people have so many distractions that they may be less aware of that fact. Katrina was a good example. Those winds didn*t stop at the New Orleans city line! Also even in cities, people have to eat and that food comes from somewhere. In the country it might be a nearby farm, so folks get the connection. But in the city too, food can come from a neighborhood or school urban garden or a Farmers Market. In fact if you*re interested in working with urban people on nature-reconnection, food is a great place to start. Ask people to tell you where their food comes from. They might say McDonald*s or the supermarket. But then you could ask, before that? How did the food get to the supermarket? What geographical location, what piece of soil grew those beans or carrots? And how did they get to Detroit? Also, building urban gardens is ecotherapy. Could be in a school yard, or even could be *guerilla gardening* on a piece of vacant land. Helping people reconnect with their food is some of the most powerful ecotherapy that exists. In the academic literature, it*s called horticultural therapy and grants are often given for doing it.
Trista: The problem that I am trying to solve is how to bring natural therapy int o the cities, to those who may possibly need it the most.
Linda: I mentioned some possibilities in the paragraph above. Also, another good exercise is to get people to define *nature.* Most people start out thinking it*s *way out there* in Yosemite or some other so-called wilderness area. But if you define nature as that which isn*t controlled by the human ego, you realize that *wild* nature exists in our bloodstreams, our bodies, the sky over our heads, our dreams at night, the rain that falls, clouds, sunshine, stars, moon (it*s good to ask people if they know what phase the moon is in, as the moon shines everywhere), weeds in the park, the dandelions in a crack on the sidewalk, pets and the wild critters that still exist in the cities, even the rats and cockroaches, etc.! And everyone has a little bit of *out there* nature they can cultivate. Even a few herbs on a windowsill or a pot of tomatoes on a balcony or patio are nature therapy. Nature-connection of any kind is profoundly healing.
All the best with your efforts to bring ecotherapy into the cities. Perhaps you will be the founder of the first Ecotherapy Institute in your area!
11. THE PASSING OF DEEP ECOLOGY FOUNDER ARNE NAESS
On Jan 12, 2009 Norwegian philosopher Arne Naess died at the age of 96. The International Herald Tribune noted that his *ideas about promoting an intimate and all-embracing relationship between the earth and the human species inspired environmentalists and Green political activists around the world.*
Naess *developed a theory that he called deep ecology. Its central tenet is the belief that all living beings have their own value and therefore, as Naess once put it, *need protection against the destruction of billions of humans.*
*Deep ecology, which called for population reduction, soft technology and non-interference in the natural world, was eagerly taken up by environmentalists impatient with shallow ecology (another of Naess*s coinages) which did not confront technology and economic growth.*
http://www.iht.com/articles/2009/01/15/europe/15naess.php
12. INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON ECOLOGY AND PROFESSIONAL HELPING TO DISCUSS ECOTHERAPY
*Building Bridges, Crossing Boundaries: Interdisciplinary Dialogues on Person, Planet and Professional Helping* is the topic of a conference to be held May 7-9, 2009 at the University of Calgary in Alberta, Canada.
*While there is evidence of serious ecological decline, there is also vibrant hope and a growing global dialogue as to how we can creatively engage the challenges and opportunities that we now face. This interdisciplinary conference will be of interest to many professionals such as social workers, psychologists, environmentalists, teachers, nurses, social service deliverers, environmental educators, and mental health professionals.*
David Orr and Joanna Macy are two of the major speakers for the conference.
*The conference aims to share research and effective practices and strategies, and to enable creative dialogues that inspire, while also fostering new interdisciplinary partnerships. Sessions will include scholarly papers and presentations, keynote speakers, workshops, and poster sessions.*
Themes to be addressed include ecotherapy. The conference aims to
Explore ecological problems and challenges confronting our world such as climate change, habitat destruction, pollution, environmental ethics, sustainability, and environmental durability in communities
Develop approaches and strategies such as engaging communities, building capacity for durable social action, and nurturing sustainability leadership
Create partnerships between professionals across disciplinary boundaries by developing collaborations and sharing knowledge
Apply our learning to professional and personal practices such as eco-clinical practice, community-based social action, ecotherapy, green learning and teaching, cultivating ecological literacy and environmental citizenship, ecospiritu ality, and personal and community forms of sustainability
For further information, contact John Coates jcoates@stu.ca, Fred H. Besthorn fred.besthorn@uni.edu, or Mishka Lysack mlysack@ucalgary.ca .
13. POST YOUR ECOPSYCHOLOGY EVENTS, COURSES AND DEGREES ON OUR WEBSITE
Ecopsychology and ecotherapy events, courses and programs can now be posted directly on our website. If you*re a student, check that out; or if you’re a teacher, post your classes there. Also, I keep an ongoing list of college and university programs that offer ecopsychol ogy courses and/or degrees: if you’d like to receive the list, please e-mail me. .
14. 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: http://www.mymoonster.com a delightful way to get yourself back in sync with nature*s cycles and explore radical ecopsychology.
** ONLINE DISCUSSION GROUP: Join a list-serv where you can discuss activist ecopsychology with others interested in this topic:
chat_act_ecopsy-subscribe@yahoogroups.com
* INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOR ECOPSYCHOLOGY. If you haven’t yet discovered it, check out http://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...
* ONLINE PERMA-PSYCHOLOGY DISCUSSION GROUP: This group discussed the connections between permaculture (permanent culture/agriculture, ecological design) and psychology. To join go to: http://groups.google.com/group/perma-psychology
* Check out the great academic search engine: http://scholar.google.com. Look up *ecopsychology,* *ecotherapy* for lots of interesting stuff…
