Eco-therapy: How Environmental Awareness Can Influence a Therapy Practice
by
Mitch Hall
Introduction
This essay envisions a psychotherapy practice that is influenced by environmental awareness. It proposes a model of eco-therapy within the theoretical perspective of Winter’s definition of ecological psychology as “the study of human experience and behavior in its physical, political, and spiritual context, in order to build a sustainable world” (1996, p 283). Therefore, a goal of eco-therapy is to empower people, through an emotionally healing relationship (Lewis, Amini, & Lannon, 2000; Schore, 2003), to play healthy, active roles in building a sustainable world. Sustainability is understood in terms of Brown’s definition as “the capacity to satisfy current needs without jeopardizing the prospects of future generations” (Roszak, 1992, p. 251). Furthermore, this model builds on Roszak’s (1992) postulated therapeutic goals of awakening access to what he called the “ecological unconscious” (p. 320) and of cultivating a mature “ecological ego” that has a sense of ethical responsibility with the planet” (p. 321). We shall consider, in turn, the need for ecological therapy, the issues it addresses, the settings in which it can occur, therapeutic modalities involved in the practice, potential benefits to clients and practitioners, potential risks, and related ethical issues.
The Need for Ecological Therapy
The environmental crisis, in its varied dimensions, is harming people physically, causing emotional stress and trauma, and resulting in social conflict and disruption (Edelstein, 1985: Brown, 1989; Pilisuk, 1989; Pilisuk, 1990; Ellis, Greenberg, Cody Murphy, & Reusser; 1992; Bullard, 1993; Pinderhughes, in press; Miller, 1993). Consequently, eco-therapy is needed to help human beings to deal effectively with the acute and chronic impacts of the environmental crisis on bodies, psyches, and relationships. Furthermore, Western cultural tradition has alienated people from nature, from our own bodies, from one another, and from a sense of meaning and purpose in life (Roszak, 1992; Winter, 1996). We need an eco-therapy to restore our wholeness. In Roszak’s terms, “Other psychologies seek to heal the alienation between person and person, person and family, person and society. Ecopsychology seeks to heal the more fundamental alienation between the person and the natural environment” (1992, p. 320).
The Issues with which Eco-therapy May Deal
Alienation from the earth cries out for healing through eco-therapy. Alienation is a distressing emotional and cognitive state of not feeling at home, whether in intimate relationships, society, nature, or the cosmos. Alienation is a sense of isolation, disconnection, estrangement, and ontological homelessness. It entails the subjective lack of a meaningful story in which we recognize our identities in relationship to significant others in a shared habitat. Anxiety, depression, neurosis, broken trust in relationships, anomie, and despair may be correlates of alienation. Eco-therapy can address such issues by helping us gain a sense of being at home on earth, and it can empower us to act to protect our earthly home.
The etymology of “eco,” as in ecology and economy, is relevant here. “Eco” is derived from the Greek word, oikos, which means house or home. Feeling at home connotes comfort, safety, acceptance, and belonging. We feel most at home where we are assured that we are warmly wanted, valued, and loved, where we share “protected intimacy” (Bachelard, 1964). The opposite of feeling at home is alienation--feeling like an unwelcome stranger or, even worse, homeless and unprotected. Eco-therapy addresses our need to feel at home in our natural environment.
Eco-therapy also can treat the pessimism and despair that come from feeling powerless to protect the earth. Such treatment does not imply learning to acquiesce to an earth-destroying culture. Rather, it signifies becoming engaged with others to transform that culture in earth-preserving ways. Thus, ecological therapy envisions activism as an outcome. Furthermore, eco-therapy is needed for helping people who suffer from environmental illnesses and who have been traumatized by environmental contamination and catastrophe.
The Settings for Eco-therapy
Eco-therapists need to take into account the effects on themselves and their clients of the settings in which they meet. Environmental awareness is not only about the world “out there” but also needs to include our immediate surroundings, which can affect our moods and health. Roszak (1992) notes, “Hillman has proposed ‘prescribing nature’ as part of therapy” (p. 310). Roszak also reminds us that, “a solitary walk by the river or ocean, a few calm hours in the woods restore the spirit and may produce more insight into our motives and goals than the best labors of the professional analyst” (1992, p. 310). Nature walks, organic gardening, and outdoor educational experiences, such as with NOLS or Outward Bound, can be complementary to counseling with an eco-therapist.
While an eco-therapist’s office cannot provide the direct experience of a forest or the ocean, it would be congruent with environmental awareness for the therapist to choose and maintain a healthy space. This could be done inexpensively. At a minimum, the office needs to be free of chemical toxins, of harmful electromagnetic radiations, and of highly allergenic substances. Beyond that, it would be meaningful for the therapist to use Feng Shui principles (Chuen, 1996) to design the office as a sort of harmonious microcosm to represent the basic elements of the natural world. Indoor plants could represent the all the varied vegetation on which we depend. A trained therapy dog could be a calming reminder of our kinship with all creatures and of our own mammalian nature. A small fountain that recycles its own water could provide restful visual and auditory stimuli and could recall the dependence of all life on water. If artificial illumination is needed, it ought to be full-spectrum lighting, which is balancing to the nervous and endocrine systems, whereas conventional, cool white fluorescent lighting is stressful and raises blood cortisol levels (Liberman, 1991). Alternatively, eco-therapists could converse with clients while taking walks in parks, working side by side in community gardens, or taking part in environmental restoration projects. Furthermore, eco-therapy retreats could be held in natural settings, where it would be conducive to enact events such as the Council of All Beings, in which costumed people enact the roles of other species and of elements of nature, all seeking survival and sustainability.
“ Exercises like the Council of All Beings bear little resemblance to the techniques of conventional psychiatry. They are communal; they are participative; they involve drama,
song, dance; they draw upon nonverbal powers of expression and catharsis. There is no commanding professional presence, no doctor who knows better and takes charge. But then perhaps an ecopsychology must break new ground, as much so in practice as in theory” (Roszak, 1992, p. 246).
The Modalities of Eco-therapy Practice
An eco-therapy practice could entail many elements and modalities. Let’s remember here that eco-therapy concerns, in addition to emotional wellbeing, the physical, political, and spiritual contexts of our lives, with a goal of empowering active participation in building a sustainable world (Winter, 1996).
An eco-therapist needs to be knowledgeable about the effects of environmental contaminants on people’s physical and emotional health. When relevant, therapists ought to “collect careful life history information from clients, including nutritional patterns, symptoms, chemical exposures, and past and present physical illnesses [Strickland, 1982]” (Miller, 1993, p.18). A toxic exposure questionnaire could provide valuable information about clients’ current home, neighborhood, and work settings, as well as about their possibilities of previous toxic exposures. The questionnaires could reveal whether clients are consuming foods, such as certain fish, known to contain high levels of toxins. Sometimes anxiety, depression, and other psychological symptoms can be aspects of environmental illness. In order to be as helpful as possible, the therapist needs to be aware of the symptoms associated with particular toxins.
Based on the information that is gathered from a questionnaire, the therapist may find it relevant to make recommendations for clients to take preventive or remedial actions. Perhaps clients could be referred to medical services for blood tests to ascertain levels of heavy metal toxicity or pesticide residues. Perhaps nutritional supplements that help protect against or eliminate certain contaminants can be recommended. Perhaps clients could be advised to have the paint in the buildings where they live checked for lead. Perhaps clients could be linked to a coalition of neighbors who are politically engaged to protect their communities from a planned toxic waste dump. Ideally, the therapist would have clear, easily understandable handouts to give to clients about environmental issues with which they are likely to be dealing.
At an appropriate time, the therapist can inquire about how a client feels regarding local and global environmental issues. Attending and responding with empathy is needed here, just as it is with other emotional issues. This inquiry could lead to a therapeutically relevant exploration of the feelings elicited by the environmental issues of concern. “As we begin to sense the absurdity of this planetary predicament, many of us will have some sensation of anxiety, sadness, or helplessness” (Winter, 1996, pp. 148-149). Although we are habitually defended against experiencing such feelings, we can immerse ourselves in them fully, with the therapist as an empathic witness, up to the moment when we paradoxically discover that we are released from them. Then we may find ourselves with more consciousness and energy available for constructive action. The therapist’s genuineness, acknowledged vulnerability, and self-disclosure around such issues will be supportive to the client and will help overcome a sense of isolation, with regard to the environmental crisis. Another, related line of inquiry might be to ascertain any positive experiences the client has had with nature. Out of these exchanges could come a plan of constructive action for the client that involves, “choosing a specific project for helping to create a sustainable world” (Winter, 1996, p. 151). Such an action plan could help a client to grow by transcending self-absorption through altruistic service. Winter (1996) cites Maslow [1971] about the developmental significance of such service: “Self-actualizing people are, without one single exception, involved in a cause outside their own skin…[they] devote their lives to the search for what I have called the ’being’ values, the ultimate values which are intrinsic, which cannot be reduced to anything more ultimate…” (p. 243). Preserving the earth for future generations of all species is clearly one of those ultimate values.
Somatic awareness practices are particularly indicated for ecological therapy. Bodily awareness can be an efficient route to awakening what Roszak (1992 termed the “ecological unconscious.” To overcome alienation, we need to regain capacity to feel in our bodies the full range of our emotions and also to experience the world vividly with all our physical senses. Winter (1996) fantasized about what hypothetical extraterrestrials could observe about most people’s levels of bodily and sensory awareness: “Living in chronic alienation from nature, they also are distanced from their own physical bodies. The creatures build institutions and cities that block them from experiencing the physical world” (p. 146). The gestalt therapist, Perls, believed that, “the way out of our neurotic plight is through direct sensory experience of the here and now” (Winter, p. 237). This can also become part of the way out of alienation from the environment. Perls referred to such physical sensing of present circumstances as “contact.” He maintained that, “By shutting down our contact we become numb to our unified being” (Winter, p. 237). “Unified being” is not being in isolation. Rather, it is being in relationship. In the somatically based practice of Eutony, “The constant correlation between the total person and the environment is, from our point of view, the indispensable prerequisite for a conscious awareness of reality which is basic to achieving a healthy state” (Alexander, 1985, p. 9). An eco-therapy practice could involve modalities such as movement, touch, and silent meditation to help clients to sense the environment and to be responsive to it. When needs for emotional support have not been met by significant others, literally getting in touch with the support provided by the ground beneath our feet has been clinically found to reduce anxieties and to help people cope better with stresses (Alexander, 1985). The eco-therapist can refer clients to classes, such as in Eutony, or can teach them somatic practices that the clients can do at home to renew their contact with the environment and their sense of being grounded and centered. The somatic integration that is thereby attained, along with an accompanying release of tension, can free up energy for meaningful activities to help build a sustainable world.
The Benefits of Eco-therapy
Integrating environmental awareness into a therapy practice can bring benefits to therapist and client alike. Both parties may find themselves energized and empowered through actively addressing collective environmental concerns. Drury (2003) has observed that benefits to health and mood are derived from activism for the environment, peace, and justice. Through the somatic and sensory awareness practices involved, both the therapist and the client may derive a greater sense of aliveness. They may experience their identities as “ecological selves” (Winter, 1996). Winter postulates, “…the ecological self is an integration of two selves: both the separate physical self, which is what we normally experience as people in the Western world, as well as the larger self which identifies with the ecosphere” (1996, p. 248). Although experiencing the physical self as “separate” may be common, as Winter maintains, it is an illusion. Through somatic practices, we can become aware, not just theoretically but also experientially, that physically we are never separate. We can consciously experience that we are always dependent on the air that streams in and out of our nostrils. The environing air is part of us, and we are part of it. Without air, we die within minutes. Likewise, we are always dependent on the ground that supports us. Without the ground, we cannot exist. The etymology of “exist” is significant. It literally means to stand out. Standing presupposes a supporting ground. Every drink of water, every meal can be consciously experienced, once we are somatically awake, as communion rites of the ecological self. The waters of the world and the foods from the earth are parts of us, and we are parts of them. We are engaged in continuous, rhythmical recycling, in and out, of the gases, liquids, and solids of earthly existence. Similarly, the ecological self experiences the animating energy of the sun as fueling, feeding, warming, and brightening us and all on which we depend. Without the sun we have neither being nor world. We are parts of the sun, and the sun is part of us. Such awakenings, both somatic and intellectual, to our relational unity with the ecosphere, our home, comprise the spiritual context of the ecological self’s being. The physical is the spiritual; the ecological is the transpersonal.
The Risks of Eco-therapy
Eco-therapy entails a few risks. In opening to awareness of the environmental crisis and all attendant feelings, one risks becoming overwhelmed with despair by the enormity and severity of it. Therefore, the eco-therapist needs good skills for working through despair to empowerment. Another risk of eco-therapy could be posed to frail egos that did not have secure interpersonal attachment in the beginning of life. Glimpsing the illusory nature of the separate self can be threatening in such cases. The eco-therapist needs to be able to assess differentially the relative ego strengths of clients and to conduct the therapy appropriately. Somatic practices that include grounding can help overcome such risks of ego disintegration. The political action implications of eco-therapy also entail risks. We may realize we can no longer stay in a job with a company that irresponsibly pollutes. We may feel compelled by ethical responsibility to the earth to participate in civil disobedience with the risk of arrest. Eco-therapists may be at risk for not knowing enough about environmental toxins, or about somatic practices, or about appropriate political actions. Necessary training and supervision modalities need to be developed. Eco-therapists could potentially be at risk for charges of for going beyond the scope of practice defined by their licenses. Nonetheless, the risks are all worth taking because of the much greater risks to our sanity and our earth that would be entailed if we did not engage in “healing the split between planet and self” (Winter, 1996).
Ethical issues in Eco-therapy
Eco-therapists need to be explicit with clients from the beginning about the ecological dimensions of the therapy. The therapists must not impose their own political agendas on clients, although they may help clients discover what forms of activism will best suit their own needs. An ethical sense of responsibility to clients and to the earth is at the heart of eco-therapy. As Roszak (1992) says, “The ecological ego matures toward a sense of ethical responsibility with the planet that is as vividly experienced as our ethical responsibility to other people” (p. 321). Moreover, Roszak affirms, “the needs of the planet are the needs of the person, the rights of the person are the rights of the planet” (p. 321). Eco-therapists can be pioneers in defining and refining a transpersonal ethics that integrates responsibility to person and planet.
Concluding Comments
Eco-therapy can meet important needs, as discussed above. It can help people heal from alienation and become empowered to act on behalf of the earth. It can lead to the development of the ecological self: “…people acting from their ecological self, behave in environmentally appropriate ways out of love, rather than out of moralistic persuasion” (Winter, 1996, p. 249). Such love in environmentally appropriate action, woven “into the fabric of social relations and political decisions” (Roszak, 1992, p. 321) can be a healing outcome of eco-therapy.
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