There Is Therapy And Then There Is Ecotherapy

There are multiple points that I took note of as I read my provided review copy of Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind, by Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist.  The book contains a collection of 32 articles related to how nature and natural settings provide a form of therapy, and how they can be used to assist in healing people who have lost that connection with Earth.  They are written by scholars, authors, psychologists, professors, journalists, and therapists, among others.

The book reads quite smoothly for one that has so many essays from so many different authors, and that would likely be due to the work of the two editors, Linda Buzzell and Craig Chalquist.  A person could pick up the book and then randomly skip to the beginning of one of the 5-12 page essays, read it, and then come back later to read another one of choice.  This type of book structure is a large benefit, because the book reads well as a regular book from cover to cover, but also can be understood as well when read by going back and forth from one essay to another.  In total, there are five subcategory sections to the book, with each containing about six essays.  Here I will discuss some points from various sections of the book, and elaborate on them with my own points:

Where Is Your Time Spent?

Linda Buzzell also contributed one of the first section’s essays, which is called Asking Different Questions: Therapy For The Human Animal, where she pointed out that she would ask clients about how much of their day was spent behind a screen or in an otherwise unnatural setting as compared with human-to-human interaction or time in a natural setting.  The idea behind this is that individuals can need therapy due to the disconnect they have with the natural settings that their mind is yearning for.  There is efficiency and productivity, but if there is a hole in someones mind that can only be filled by running through a park trail, becoming more efficient or productive won’t fill that hole.  You will want to check to see if you are in this situation.

What nature serves to do is to open up your mind.  It provides a multitude of stimuli, which has an inverse effect as it is relaxing.  One of the large advantages for those that have a large house with a large backyard and much greenery is that the setting serves to provide the people living inside with bigger thinking and risk-taking ability.  The openness translates to a feeling of success and boldness.  For those that don’t have such a large backyard, spending a fair amount of time in park or beach settings can have a similar effect, allowing you to focus less on small issues you run across, and focus more on the larger items you want to tackle.

The Disconnect With Nature Is The Cause Of Much Anguish

In one of the essays called The Waking-Up Syndrome, Sarah Anne Edwards discusses about how “anxiety, depression, and relationship difficulties” are increasing as human and natural habitats deteriorate.  The essay stresses the importance of our local and perceived global environments on our regular day-to-day thinking.  We commonly feel mood changes based on rain, clouds, or sun oustide, and these cause short-term effects on our actions, but also feel long-term effects based on the direction our environment is headed.  This relates to both how viewing a screen for most of the day turns that into our new regular environment, and how the industrialization of local areas resulting in reduced natural space affects our image of the location we are in.

Closing Notes

Here I have introduced some topics from the book.  I will likely connect a follow-up article to this one, with more information from the book.  On an unrelated note, the Google PageRank of Timeless Information has increased from a 3 to a 4.

Tagged as: book review, ecotherapy, environment, linda buzzell, Mindset, therapy