Seeds for Thought: an Ecopsychology Blog

Wilderness Therapies for Troubled Teens Abusive?

In January 2007 Sun magazine (www.thesunmagazine.org) published an interview of "Help at Any Cost" author Maia Szalavitz on "The Myth of Tough Love" that exposes the abuses in the teen recovery "industry", including that in the "wilderness-survival" therapy businesses. I think this is an issue that may concern those of us interested in wilderness therapies in general.

In the current March issue of Sun, many people wrote in telling of their painful experiences. For example: "My own tough-love experience was in a wilderness-survival program. I was a 13-year-old ward of the state, recently removed from an abusive home. The program's 'let's be mean to teens in the woods' philosophy...only reinforced the distrust and anger I felt...Luckily I loved the isolation and being in the wilderness."

Ecotherapy and Spiral Dynamics

When my husband and I took the Permaculture Design Course last year, our teacher was always reminding us to ask the following questions on every design project: WHERE ARE WE? WHEN ARE WE? In other words, we needed to take note not only of the deep ecology of the landscape we stood on but also its (and our) place in the natural succession of things. Are we at the disturbed earth/pioneer plants stage? Or are we members of the mature forest?

Recently I discovered Spiral Dynamics, developed by Dr. Clare W. Graves and his followers, and was pleased to see that it too deals with this critical question of “when” we are in the evolving nature of things. SD focuses not on natural biological succession, but rather on the succession patterns of human culture. It is highly controversial, especially when misunderstood and misapplied – but also profoundly thought provoking.

THE LUNAR CALENDAR

I’ve been puzzling about how and why the lunar year turned into the solar year. The idea of starting the new year around the Winter Solstice and counting thirteen 28-day lunar months seems somehow more “natural” and nature-connected than the convoluted Julian calendar Western culture still uses.

I was fascinated to read in Wikipedia that “as a religious tradition, the thirteen-month years survived among European peasants for more than a millennium after the adoption of the Julian Calendar.” I wonder why…

The natural lunar cycle is intimately connected with the female menstrual cycle and other earthy and planetary influences. As Heather Witham points out to us in her Moon Letters, losing touch with the moon’s cycles seems to separate us from awareness of, connection with and reverence for both nature and the deep feminine. And the number 13, of course, has come in the Christian era to have all sorts of frightening connotations, so no good patriarch would advocate a return to such an ominous system.

Thinking Good Thoughts is Not Enough

Increasingly I hear from friends involved with various New Age and traditional spiritual ideas and practices that the solution to our community’s and the world’s increasingly threatening political, social, economic and environmental crises is positive thought. “What we think is what we create,” they say. Many work hard at improving their mental state, but few of them seem to take much interest in practical action in the outside world. They seem to prefer meditating, holistic health practices, therapy, taking workshops or going to yoga classes. All worthy endeavors, of course, but perhaps not sufficient to address our current historical challenges.

Indeed, if we look at history we see that the great positive changes and advances were often the result not only of enlightened ideas but also hard work, tenacious persistence, profound resistance and incredible bravery. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Gandhi, although highly spiritual, didn’t just think good thoughts about racism or colonialism. In addition to prayer and meditation, they took specific actions to create change.

Unnatural Work Teams

As a career counselor and psychotherapist, I hear a lot of sad tales about unpleasant bosses and work mates.

As an ecotherapist, it finally dawned on me that it is completely unnatural for human beings to be randomly yoked to unrelated strangers on a work team!

I always go back to the Pleistocene as my touchstone. This is when homo sapiens came into being, and thinking about how people lived then helps me understand what is “natural” for human animals. And of course back then we lived and worked in small groups of mostly related people.

No sane group member would think of going on a dangerous hunting expedition with people he’d never hunted with before! He would probably have known every member of the group since childhood and have been well aware of their individual strengths and weaknesses, which would tell him who to count on and what not to expect.

Therapists Just Don't Get It!

As you probably know from bitter experience, therapists get endless brochures advertising workshops, seminars, continuing education events, conferences on psychology and psychotherapy.

Almost all of them focus exclusively on the human-human relationship and nature is never mentioned.

Take the latest brochure I’ve received. It’s touting the upcoming Psychotherapy Networker conference on “The Creative Leap.” You can check it out at http://www.psychotherapynetworker.org/SympWestBro2006.pdf

The conference will offer everything from “Creativity Day” to the latest on ADHD, couples counseling etc. etc. plus words of wisdom from various gurus but only one workshop that acknowledges maybe our world and planet are in a BIG mess. And nothing on the importance of healing the human-nature relationship before we extinguish ourselves and take that big creative leap into dodo-land!

Turn Your Neighborhood into an EcoHood!

"EcoHood, n: permaculture retrofit of a mid- to low-income neighborhood with a high potential for ecological sustainability."

What if you could achieve a truly sustainable lifestyle right where you live now, without moving to a rural commune?

This is the new idea of community sustainability: the EcoHood. And it’s at the forefront of community ecotherapy.

http://www.emagazine.com/view/?3066 will take you to an article about Andrew Millison and his low-to-middle-income EcoHood project in Prescott, Arizona. "Really, the concept is about bringing traditionally rural values like self-reliance, respect for the land and community into the city," says Millison.

New Website on Community Ecotherapy "best practices"

Ecopsychologist Craig Chalquist, Ph.D., who teaches at Sonoma State and John F. Kennedy Universities, has started a new website (www.terrapsych.com/opuspax.html) to collect community ecotherapy “best practices” for future survival:

“With all the urgent talk about peak oil and a post-carbon future, we hear very little addressing the social or psychological implications of living in such a world. And yet what point survival if we don't survive whole?

”I have created a Web page to begin collecting "best practices" that foster mental well-being and community harmony. My thought is that rather than waiting around for the empire to fall, or spending a fortune stockpiling bullets and dried apricots, why not see all this as an opportunity to experiment with practices that have been used the world over by people in peaceful communities: conflict resolution, the practice of council, clear communications skills, indigenous ways of knowing, town hall democracy, practical psychology, restorative justice, etc.

My dog the cotherapist

When I first started to practice as a psychotherapist, I had a home office – and a dog. At first I kept my dog – a little, fuzzy friendly mutt named Pookie – strictly out of my counseling room. But soon it became evident that this wasn’t going to be possible. As soon as clients came to the door, Pookie was there welcoming them, wagging her tail and demanding a kiss and a hug. I was amazed at the effect this had on depressed, traumatized or angry people. Their whole bodies relaxed. Smiles and a softening in the eyes were inevitable.

So more times than not, Pookie followed us into the counseling room and seated herself wherever she was needed – on the floor, on a lap… I watched as tearful clients stroked her as they told their stories. Yes, my human ear and understanding were helping my clients, but so were Pookie’s soft fur and loving eyes!

Early vs Later Toppers: The New Peak Oil Conflict

I just finished reading “What They Don’t Want You to Know about the Coming Oil Crisis,” an article by Jeremy Leggett that appeared in the British publication “The Independent.” You can find it at
http://countercurrents.org/po-leggett210106.htm

It is a calm, well-reasoned explanation of the probable real-world, practical consequences of peak oil, especially as they may affect the world and local economy, including the food economy. One fascinating thing the article addresses is the emerging conflict between the "early toppers" and the "later toppers" – those who think the effects of peak oil are imminent and those who believe we have a few years to take action. Both agree that complex and formidable difficulties are coming as we transition from the fossil fuel economy to alternative energy economies, but there is now heated discussion about when things will turn and how urgent the situation really is.