Ecotherapy is a burgeoning field of therapy which, as applied ecopsychology, offers a variety of techniques for bringing nature into the human-human dyad as a way of broadening the holding environment and situating our always-enmeshed, interconnected, and reciprocal relationship to/with/in the natural world (Delaney, 2021, p. 35). Pragmatically, nature is considered the third body, shifting therapy from a human-human dyad to a human-nature-human triad (Buzzell, 2009)—a shift that can radically decenter conventional psychological approaches (i.e., anthropocentric) toward a more holistic and lived experience of our fully immersed embeddedness within this planetary ecosystem. Consequently, sensory and emotional experiences about the devastation of the planet (e.g., ecogrief, ecotrauma, solastalgia), for instance, shift from being externalities to the human psyche into being integral responses to climate change.

A story may be illustrative:

I still remember the canyon, the vibrant colors of the whitish and yellow sandstone up near the overhead ledges and the dark, blood-red sands underfoot, disintegrations from the lower cliffs. I walked out there in ceremony to make contact with my anger, to unblock an essential part of my human embodiment. I walked out there to heal.

Hours earlier, in the dawn light of that desert morning, I remember sitting with Colleen and two other guides. They were holding me in an intent Council, asking me in meaningful and kind-hearted ways, "So Tbird, why are you here? What are you here to do, now?" It was Colleen who could see into me so clearly, who helped me see and begin the turn toward liberating my repressed emotions. She has always seen so clearly into my depths, since the day we met and fell in love ten years ago. Her empathy and understanding have been the most profound salve for my wounded heart.

It was hot when I set off toward the strange canyons of the hills, high above the Chama River nearby. A place so spectacularly famous as an integral image of the entire genre of art, where I only have to turn around and look at the Pedernal. But I walked the other way.

I told the land as I went: "I am here to make contact with my anger, to undam this place inside." I got into an arroyo, and kept following that red wash in the meandering way as it approached those cliffs… farther and farther, as the sun got hotter and hotter.

All of a sudden, I looked up, and there was a split: the canyon divided upstream into two different paths. The most subtle and quiet voice inside, almost imperceivable, said, "But I don't want to make a decision. I don't want to decide right or left here." Being deep into the ceremony, I let that quiet voice become my gateway. I let the contagion of emotion spread within me. I magnified it, said it out loud, felt the tiny, fractured edge of the hurt and pettiness, and let it bloom. I threw off my pack: here is what I had come for. I let the emotions swell, and took a path between the splitting arroyo, up onto the sandy hill in the middle. I climbed until I could touch the cliff, now tens of meters above the wash.

Then I opened the door, and let the rocks and words and tears and rage emerge in a fury of activity as I said what I needed to say, felt what I needed to feel, and moved what I needed to move. No plants, no animals, no others were harmed by such vast movements; rather, they were my witnesses. The soft sands below became my catcher. Hours later, I sat weeping and exhausted, with a single phrase, a new northstar in my psyche, a sacred mantra for how I can catch myself and others in my life and vocation as an integrated and initiated adult. Eventually, I walked on, eyes cleansed in the evening light, seeing with honest integrity the beauty of this landscape. As the last light faded, I laid down amidst creosote bushes, a vista spread over the desert plain below, and laid in the wonder as the stars came to sing their lullaby to the earth body once again.

From a therapeutic perspective, by centering the triad of therapy on the natural world, ecotherapy creates a holding environment that directly acknowledges the more-than-human world and the natural world as integral to the process of healing (Buzzell, 2009). From such a perspective, the kind of relationship one has to nature is just as critical as the amount of time in nature (Mitten, 2021, p. 183). Such recentering also allows for the recognition of how sociocultural biases (e.g., linear progression, results orientation, objective measures) influence what is considered allowable, successful, and best practices in therapy.

How might we, for instance, classify my opening story: certainly, it is beyond the scope of conventional psychotherapy. Yet, for me, this self-led ceremonial catharsis was transformational and helped me make contact and begin healing the repression of emotions from the traumas I had endured. Wilderness rite-of-passage ceremonies such as this are an integral aspect of the work of ALCHEMY OF PRANA because of the simple yet profound way in which all parts of ourselves belong and can be accessed toward relational healing.

Ecotherapies, however, may reproduce harmful attitudes toward nature, such as the following: nature as resource or commodity; nature as something which is other; nature as something which humyns are disconnected from, seen as something to dominate, or even more subtly, anthropomorphized (Mitten, 2021, p. 181). Buzzell (2016) articulated a way in which to redress this challenge by offering a simple categorical way in which to approach ecotherapy. Level 1 ecotherapies are those that continue a human-centric healing modality; that is, a therapy that is for humans by humans and which only serves to help humans. A core aspect of ecopsychological theory is reciprocity, however, and Level 2 ecotherapies orient thusly. Level 2 ecotherapies are those within which healing happens simultaneously for human and more-than-human world.

Critically, there is a vast amount of empirical evidence supporting the benefits of nature for humans (Delaney, 2021). Ergo, all ecotherapies are important and beneficial, and can support reorientation of humans beyond just a human-centric worldview. Yet, from a best practices orientation, therapists and individuals interested in incorporating the wild earth into their therapies may consider the reciprocity that is or is not available in their praxis.

In conclusion, Rust (2009) outlined a succinct reason for why any of us might consider shifting toward an ecopsychological and ecotherpeautic paradigm:

"Therapists become ecotherapists when we feel this pain and look to nature (both our own human nature as well as the natural world) as a teacher and source of healing; when we see that human suffering is intimately connected with the destruction of the web of life, and that healing is about making deep changes in the way we live and relate to the world around us" (Rust, 2009, p. 39).

In kindness, tbird

References

Buzzell, L. (2009). Asking different questions: Therapy for the human animal. In L. Buzzell & C. Chalquist (Eds.), Ecotherapy: Healing with nature in mind (pp. 47–60). Sierra Club Books.

Buzzell, L. (2016). The many ecotherapies. In M. Jordan & J. Hinds (Eds.), Ecotherapy: Theory, research, and practice (pp. 70–80). Macmillan International Higher Education.

Delaney, M. E. (2021). Ecopsychological approaches to therapy. In N. J. Harper & W. W. Dobud (Eds.), Outdoor therapies: An introduction to practices, possibilities, and critical perspectives (pp. ). Routledge.

Harper, N. J., & Dobud, W. W. (Eds.). (2021). Outdoor therapies: An introduction to practices, possibilities, and critical perspectives. Routledge.

Mitten, D. (2021). Critical perspectives on outdoor therapy practices. In N. J. Harper & W. W. Dobud (Eds.), Outdoor therapies: An introduction to practices, possibilities, and critical perspectives (pp. ). Routledge.

Rust, M-J. (2009). Why and how do therapists become ecotherapist's? In L. Buzzell & C. Chalquist (Eds.), Ecotherapy: Healing with nature in mind (pp. 38–46). Sierra Club Books.