Finding the Positive

As I sift through the notes I have taken over these past weeks I am trying to find the themes that speak to me, and what I want to focus on in the development of an ecopsychology workshop. More and more I find that the critical aspect of ecopsychology is what I am drawn to, which is not the most useful when thinking in terms of therapeutic applications. Ecopsychologist Andy Fisher (2012) writes that ecopsychology has two ways of being radical.

"The first sense is recollective. It involves recalling the unity of humanity and nature. This is about rediscovering our roots in the earth and realizing human-nature kinship in all its concrete detail-- a task requiring new and old knowledge, skills, and practices. Such recollection is radical because it overcomes the forgetfulness of our earthbound nature, healing a deep wound in the modern psyche and opening up a rich world of more-than-human relations unimaginable to the earth-alienated min. Less familiar than the recollective sense is the critical sense of ecopsychology-- the questioning of our entire social formation insofar as it generates ecological and psychospiritual crises through the domination of nature. The critical work of ecopsychology involves such established areas as the critique of ideology, historical and cultural analysis, and critical social theorizing in general. Its big picture approach offers interpretations that reveal connections that are invisible to the mainstream view and that provide root level insights into our historical ecopsychological situation. The recollective and critical sides of ecopsychology are its positive and negative moments. Together they form the radical whole." (pps. 81-82)

I find that the notes I am taking, the journal entries I scrawl on page after page, they all bear more of the "negative" or "critical" side to ecopsychology. Though I think that this is a very important aspect of what makes ecopsychology a critically important lens, when we are talking about treatment applications it would seem that looking at the  recollective elements of ecopsychology are the most vital. How can we reintegrate into our place as a part of the whole of life? What are the webs that need to be rewoven to bring about a shifting of our individual, and ultimately collective wellbeing?

Fisher (2012) points our that it is too easy to use "nature" as one more pill in the medical model of therapy. That we must change our entire framework and way of thinking in order to address the pathology that is creating the wounds to being with. "Ecopsychology easily reduces to slogans along the lines of 'Nature is good for your mental health,' a medical notion that perpetuates a nature-estranged way of talking (nature being something external than can be prescribed)" (p. 82).

And so I go back through the underlined texts, and the stacks of notes to find the underlying themes that I am personally drawn to utilize in a therapeutic context. To reexamine the critiques and look for the moments of movement and growth within them, so as to have actual tools to bring to my work as a counselor. In these next weeks I will be developing a workshop to tie together some of these practical tools as treatment applications. I will then present the workshop outline here.

References

Fisher, A. (2012). What is ecopsycholgy? A radical view. In P. H. Kahn, & P. H. Hasbach (Eds.), Ecopsychology; science, totems, and the technological species (pp. 79--114). Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press.