HEADLINES:
ECOTHERAPY: HEALING WITH NATURE IN MIND NOW IN BOOKSTORES!
ECOPSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL NOW LAUNCHED
Contents:
1. QUOTES OF THE MONTH: Herman Daly, David Orr
2. *ECOTHERAPY: Healing with Nature in Mind* now in bookstores and on amazon
3. WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO INTERVIEW ON ECOTHERAPY
4. NEW ECOPSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL just launched
5. NOTES FROM ECOPSYCHOLOGY PIONEER ROBERT GREENWAY
6. NEW ECOPSYCHOLOGY MASTERS DEGREE AT ANTIOCH SEATTLE
7. JEROME BERNSTEIN ANNOUNCES NEW *BETWEEN BO RDERLANDERS* BLOG
8. REPORT ON *BRIDGING NATURE & HUMAN NATURE* CONFERENCE by Mark Schroll
9. LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Douglas Green
10. NEW BOOK: GROWING WHOLE: Self-Realization for the Great Turning
by Molly Young Brown
11. POST YOUR ECOPSYCHOLOGY EVENTS, COURSES AND DEGREES ON OUR WEBSITE. Special event: Deep Sustainability Through Ecotherapy
12. 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 psychotherapy20clinicians, 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 economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around.
~ Herman Daly
Against formidable resistance, the systems perspective is gradually being accepted into mainstream medicine as well as in other fields such as architecture and agriculture. So far this is still occurring within an overarching paradigm of human mastery of nature and human resistance to deep psychic engagement with the natural world. The idea of interrelatedness has yet to make a deep mark on the study of mind and our understanding of mental health. It is a considerable leap from understanding systems in the biophysical world to regarding ourselves as a part of that world, grounded in our evolutionary past and rooted in nature. ~ David Orr, in the Foreword to Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind
2. *ECOTHERAPY: Healing with Nature in Mind* NOW IN BOOKSTORES AND ON AMAZON!
Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, edited by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist is the first comprehensive exploration of the burgeoning field of nature-based psychotherapy
In the 14 years since Sierra Club Books published Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner’s groundbreaking anthology, Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, the editors of this new volume—a practicing therapist and a teacher—have often been asked: Where can I find out more about the psyche–world connection? How can I do hands-on work in this area, amidst a culture largely blind to such connections? Ecotherapy was compiled to answer these and other urgent questions.
Ecotherapy, or applied ecopsychology, encompasses a broad range of nature-based methods of psychological healing, grounded in the crucial fact that people are inseparable from the rest of nature and nurtured by healthy interaction with the Earth. Leaders in the field, including Andy Fisher (*Radical Ecopsychology*), Robert Greenway, John Scull, Mary-Jayne Rust, Lane and Sarah Conn, Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes, Ralph Metzner (*Green Psychology*), agrotherapy pioneer Shepherd Bliss and liberation psychologist Mary Watkins contribute essays that take into account the latest scientific understandings and the deepest indigenous wisdom. Other key thinkers, from Bill McKibben to Richard Louv, Joanna Macy, Richard Heinberg, West African healer Malidoma Some and ecospirituality expert K. Lauren de Boer, explore the links between ecotherapy, spiritual development, and restoring community.
The Foreword is by famed environmentalist David Orr (*Ecological Literacy*).
As mental-health professionals find themselves challenged to provide hard evidence that their practices actually work, and as costs for traditional modes of psychotherapy rise rapidly out of sight, this book offers practitioners and interested lay readers alike a spectrum of safe, effective alternative approaches backed by a growing body of research.
The book is now available in US/Canadian bookstores and on http://www.amazon.com
3. WISCONSIN PUBLIC RADIO INTERVIEW ON ECOTHERAPY
As part of the book promotion for Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, Wisconsin Public Radio did a one hour interview with Linda Buzzell that included some interesting call-in dialogues.&n bsp; To hear the interview, go to http://www.wpr.org/ideas/programnotes.cfm and enter the date May 25, 2009. The interview on ecotherapy is listed third from the top of this page and you can listen to it online.
4. NEW ECOPSYCHOLOGY JOURNAL JUST LAUNCHED
Ecopsychology, a new peer-reviewed online journal, is now being published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers. The Journal explores the relationship between environmental issues and mental health and well-being; and examines the psychological, spiritual, and therapeutic aspects of human-nature relationships, concern about environmental issues, and responsibility for protecting natural places and other species. The table of contents of the premier issue, the editorial board, instructions for authors, and subscription inform ation is all available at http://www.liebertpub.com/eco
The premier issue includes provocative articles such as *Mindfulness and Sustainable Behavior: It Isn't Effortless Being Green,* *Nature and Self: An Ambivalent Attachment,* *Too Many People: Psychology, Population, and the Environment,* and *Cohabitating with the Wild.*
Editor-in-Chief Thomas Joseph Doherty, Psy.D., Graduate School of Education and Counseling, Lewis & Clark College (Portland, OR), believes ecopsychology places psychology and mental health disciplines in their true ecological context and recognizes crucial links between human health, culture, and the health of the planet. Ecopsychology encompasses people's perspectives and reactions to environmental issues such as climate change, pollution, extinction, recycling, and the impact of their ecological footprint. With its groundbreaking and diverse collaboration of psychotherapists, social science researchers, and contributors from other environmental related fields, Ecopsychology is the only peer-reviewed journal of its kind.
Future issues will encompass how to balance environmental and sustainability concerns with lifestyle choices and religious, societal, and cultural practices; the role of connection to nature in healthy development and identity; emotional and psychological f actors that drive environmental issues; ecotherapy and the use of wilderness for health and healing; effective ways to motivate sustainable behaviors; coping with anxiety or grief about environmental destruction; and spiritual and cultural practices that support a healthy environment.
Ecopsychology provides a forum for international dialogue among experts from a range of disciplines: psychology and healthcare; environmental conservation, sociology, anthropology, and environmental studies; and related areas such as ecology, landscape restoration, eco-spirituality, and social and environmental justice movements.
To receive complimentary access to the inaugural issue, please send your full contact information, including mailing address, to ecopsychology@liebertpub.com
5. NOTES FROM ECOPSYCHOLOGY PIONEER ROBERT GREENWAY..,.
Robert Greenway has been pouring through his papers from the last 40 years or so since his early involvement in the inception of ecopsychology (then sometimes called psychoecology). The paragraphs below are from his 1980s teaching notes for an ecopsychology class at Sonoma State University, California.
Here are some gems he shares with us:
Studies of the human-nature relationship comprise the heart of ecopsychology. Acknowledgement that this relationship is somehow *broken,* and remedies for healing, are at the heart of ecotherapy. The fields have until recently been unified, now complimentary -- obviously the fields go together. Depth and clarity of direction can come from their slight but synergistic distance…
********
First of all, *healing* of the human-nature relationship implies that a *distorted relationship* exists. (Obviously, the existence of a relationship implies separate entities or processes -- and this is the first distortion.) Other distortions of this relationship take the forms of exploitation, behavioral surface *patch-ups* of mind-nature disjunctions, and so on. Reconnections between mind and nature (bridges, such as gardening, diet, *n atural dwellings,* nature study), transformation via *vision quests* and long-term wilderness immersion, though often beneficial (usually pleasurable as well) are still based on the illusion -- the initial distortion -- that *minds* can be separate from *nature.* Less common are more radical psychic-depth reconstructions of how mind-nature interaction works (from various psychological AND ecological perspectives), how the delusion that we CAN be separate from nature arises in child development, the meaning and practice of non-dual natural experiences, etc. (Think for a moment of what Maslow might have meant by *Peak Experiences,* or Jung by *epiphanous experience,* those *moments of truth* one experiences now and then, a sense of momentary oneness during a powerful aesthetic (or sexual) experience. Our lives, though laced through with such *unitary moments* are dominated by the distortion -- that we are separate -- that though we can imagine separateness or feel emotionally isolated that we are really isolated, separate and isolated. For real. Yet that is the central illusion that blocks so much of the in-depth genuine healing that we urgently need at this moment in history. There is a place in practical aspects of ecotherapy for the philosophical understanding that should be energizing ecopsychology -- and too often doesn't
******
The simple fact is that we humans confuse hubris, or delusion, or misunderstanding with reality. It is at once hubris, delusion, and profound misunderstanding that we are separate from nature -- that we CAN be separate from nature. This viewpoint -- the basis of much ecopsychology and ecotherapy, environmental politics, political attempts to change human behavior to sustainable involvement with nature, etc. -- this viewpoint reflects the very dualistic cultural grip we are attempting to heal. Such healing can give some relief, but really can only work superficially. The *transformation* needed is a release from the arrogance of dominance over nature, even while acknowledging our unique powers brought on by our massive (and so often deluded) brains. The transformation is frequent practice of, and confidence in, the experience of unity -- non-duality -- with the natural world, even while maintaining the *game* of the separate self sense, a *game* useful, if not crucial, for survival in a complex and dangerous world. And the transformation needed is that, though *the delusion of separation* may have been a necessary and inevitable *phase* in human evolution, it has led to patterns and institutions, lifestyles and political practices, that distort the true reality of our situation, and lead to destructive pat terns. The ability to fully identify with that which seems separate may be the only path for survival of life on the planet.
*****
Lovers who can truly merge begin with an exploration of their differences -- their apparent separateness. A flow -- a relationship -- between these entities reveals what both believe about relationships, and exchanges -- whether controlled, done with mutual respect, treated as an equal exchange or a ground for exploitation or an economic transaction rather than a sacred encounter. But presentations are made and, if accepted, may lead to a sense of common purpose -- a parallel path (like the perfect *coupleness* of two ducks flying in perfect unison up a river). With human thinking and other symbolic activities, much of life -- often the best we can hope for, especially with regard to *nature* -- is this kind of fully-presented and respectful *parallelism.*
But that is only the beginning. Out of this, when there is a full sense of *worthiness,* the lovers connect more intimately, and may merge, and as the Sufi's put it, The Friend may then visit -- that sense lovers have of falling into a larger and usually more intense
reality -- that sense of transcendence -- not of mindlessness but mindFULLness, of mind fully joined with nature, and there is no Other -- *One Taste* as the Buddhists say. It is out of this level of unity that true healing of the now tragically distorted human-nature relationship may take place.
It can be taught in grade school. Should be taught in Sunday school. It can*t come soon enough.
~ Robert Greenway
(Old notes from 1980's teaching of Ecopsychology -- then often called *psychoecology* -- at SonomaState University, California.)
6. NEW ECOPSYCHOLOGY MASTERS AT ANTIOCH SEATTLE
There is a new Masters in Psychology degree in ecopsychology at Antioch Seattle.
http://www.antiochsea.edu/academics/psychology/ecopsychology-overview.html
*Ecopsychology offers an opportunity to participate in one of the greatest challenges of our time — reconnecting individuals to the earth. Through rediscovering humanity's kinship with all of life and following the teachings of scholars and healers, students in the Ecopsychology concentration learn to lead change in their communities and organizations.
*You build an in-depth understanding and practice in the field of ecopsychology that applies to many professions including education, consulting, writing, wilderness-based healing or working in a nonprofit or governmental social change setting. As with other ISP concentrations, ecopsychology is nonclinical in nature. You pursue a structured and comprehensive psychology curriculum.
*The program may be completed in two years of full-time study and you earn 60 quarter credits for your master's degree. Part-time study also is an option. The program begins fall term.*
If you are interested in teaching or becoming a student, contact Lisa Lynch llynch@earthlink.net 425-418-0763
7. JEROME BERNSTEIN ANNOUNCES *BETWEEN BORDERLANDERS* BLOG
Jerome Bernstein, author of the popular book *Living in the Borderland: The Evolution of Consciousness and the Challenge of Healing Trauma,* now has a website (http://www.borderlanders.com) and blog open to those who identify as *borderlanders.* As Bernstein says: *There are many people whose experience of reality is outside the mainstream of Western culture; often they see themselves as abnormal be cause they have no articulated frame of reference for their experience. The concept of the Borderland personality explains much of their experience. Many perceive themselves as modern day canaries carrying the pain of a traumatized ecology.*
8. REPORT ON *BRIDGING NATURE & HUMAN NATURE* CONFERENCE by Mark Schroll
Real world discussion time near a nature center with a group of open minded explorers of new paradigm(s) (as Alan Drengson suggested in a recent conversation) is so much more productive than the sometimes dissociative or disconnected forms of communication via the Internet.
*Bridging Nature & Human Nature,* April 1-5, 2005 in Portland, Oregon was a watershed event. In addition to two full days and two half days of papers, 70 to 80 people jammed into a small theater Saturday April 4 in Portland, Oregon for the *History and Future of Ecopsychology* forum with Robert Greenway, Alan Drengson (founding Editor of The Trumpeter: Journal of Ecosophy), Stanley Krippner, Nora Bateson (dauther of the late Gregory Bateson), Daniela Maffei (a graduate student interested in sacred places at the Institute for Transpersonal Psychology studying with James Swan), which was organized and moderated by Mark A. Schroll. In the audience were people such as Thomas Joseph Doherty, Editor of the new journal Ecopsychology. Continuing Education Credits were also available for this from The Spiritual Competency Resource Center, which was a co-sponsor of the conference. These CEU*s were approved by the American Psychological Association. To my knowledge this is the second time that CEU*s have been available for a forum on *ecopsychology.* The other panel20CEU*s were available for was held at Sonoma State University in 2007, also organized and moderated by Schroll.
But more than all this, one of the most important ideas to come out of this forum was Alan Drengson pointing out that in response to Warwick Fox*s book *Toward A Transpersonal Ecology: New Foundations for Environmentalism* (1990) the late Arne Naess replied that a better title would have been *Toward A Transpersonal Ecosophy.* This is because it is Naess*s *ecosophy-t* that is representative of the same state of awareness as that of self-actualization and transcendence. Ecosophy-T is Naess* personal philosophical expression of the *deep ecology movement.*
More ideas emerged from Robert Greenway*s many contributions, which included his 30 minute reflection on *Roads Taken and Not Taken: From Humanistic to Transpersonal to an Ecopsychology of Being.*
9. LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
In response to last issue*s *The Silence of the Greens* (on the absence of discussion about overpopulation), Douglas Green writes:
Thanks as always Linda. I'm especially pleased with *The Silence of the Greens.* My feelings on that matter go even further. I*m willing to posit that the human race is so damned brilliant, and our scientific and social-concern levels are now so high, that we could solve EVERY problem on the planet -- if we could only handle population growth. ;We know how to deal with the problems that underlie terrorism, we can feed everyone, we can solve the diseases that are hurting us, and we certainly could arrest global warming - if the population would just stop growing. But it*s been growing, for the last 50 years, faster than we can keep up with it. So we*re stuck. How the hell to do anything about it? Birth control helps, but it*s not enough. We need something more drastic, and humanism of course precludes any such thing. So what the hell to do?!
10. NEW BOOK: GROWING WHOLE: Self-Realization for the Great Turning
by Molly Young Brown (Psychosynthesis Press)
Ours is a time of peril and transformation. The challenges facing us are enormous: global climate change, peak oil, economic collapse, militarism and warfare, over-population, and wide-spread environmental damage. Although these challenges may seem overwhelming, they can summon us to a *Great Turning* -- from an Industrial Growth Society to a Life Sustaining Society. How can we awaken our human potential to create peace, justice, and environmental health and renewal in the world?
Growing Whole: Self-realization for the Great Turning explores how psychosynthesis can help prepare each of us to participate in this transfo rmation. This revised and updated edition guides readers along a path of personal and spiritual growth: starting with self-awareness and centering; moving into potentials and purpose; working with blocks, sub-personalities, and strong emotions; developing all dimensions of will; and spiritual awakening; ending with relationships and service. Molly offers clear explanations of the concepts and principles along with numerous psychosynthesis exercises that can be used alone or in groups.
Molly Young Brown, M.A., M.Div. studied with Roberto Assagioli in 1973. She is the author of Unfolding Self: The Practice of Psychosynthesis and co-author with Joanna Macy of Coming Back to Life: Practices to Reconnect Our Lives, Our World. She offers phone counseling and on-line courses in psychosynthesis and ecopsychology.
Soft-bound, 228 pages, suggested list $20 (U.S.)
Available on-line at Amazon and http://www.MollyYoungBrown.com, and at your local independent book store.
11. 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 ecopsychology courses and/or degrees: if you’d like to receive the list, please e-mail me at lbuzzell@aol.com
Upcoming event of special note:
Wild Nature, Human Nature: Deep sustainability through Ecotherapy
Dates: Monday 6th to Sunday 12th October, 2009
Location: Knoydart, Scotland
Facilitators: David Key & Mary-Jayne Rust
Price: £550 - fully residential including boat transfers and VAT
This is a retreat-style course set in a wild, remote and beautiful place. It's designed for anyone wishing to encourage sustainable living through a deeper level of psychological awareness. The course weaves together theory and personal experience to provide powerful inspiration for home and work.
We have come to believe that we are separate from nature: that we have, somehow, transcended our earthly biology and made ourselves an exception to ecological rules. This *separation myth* has led us to live beyond our habitat's ability to sustain us and we must deal with it urgently, if we are to survive its consequences.
This course explores the psychopathology of the modern separation myth and how we might heal it. The quality of wildness, that *self-willed* creative force that runs through the heart of all things, provides a thread that can directly reconnect us back to our ecological selves. We come to remember, beyond the realms of intellectual doubt, that we are of nature. This form of ecological therapy offers a way to re-unite personal and planetary healing.
This course is based on our previous Ecotherapy courses but introduces a new name and format. We wanted to make it clear that our course is as much about sustainable living as about the personal benefits that experiences of wild places can bring.
David Key & Mary-Jayne Rust
Footprint Consulting Limited
email: info@footprintconsulting.org
phone: +44 (0)1540 662424
web: http://www.footprintconsulting.org
12. 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 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 discusses 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…
