ECOPSYCHOLOGY


My favorite Ecopsychology Quotes-


“The person who suppresses the animal side of his nature may become civilized, but he does so at the expense of decreasing the motive power for spontaneity, creativity, strong emotions, and deep insight.” – Calvin Hall


“For the route to a new psychology of the environment, which may contribute to our protecting it, probably cannot be achieved by measuring our reactions or talking about the problem. Only experiences that profoundly alter our view of nature and reconnect us with the divinity within ourselves and in the environment can empower people to commit themselves to the prodigious task before them. The therapeutic methods must be powerful enough to shift the ground of our being so that we experience the Earth in its living reality.” –John E. Mack


“To overcome the widespread sterilization of mind, we must unite a higher capacity for feeling with our higher capacity for thought, to produce acts that will be worth progeny of both parents.” –Betty Roszak


“Only in reciprocity with what is Other do we begin to heal ourselves.”
-David Abram


Key insight of ecofeminism:
“the despoiling of the earth and the subjugation of women are intimately connected. It is not a coincidence that when women are raped, the land becomes parched and desolate, and when “feminine” qualities are oppressed, the human mind is cut off from participation in mystery and left with a disenchanted world. “
– Mary Gomes


“Perception, consciousness, and behavior are as radically interdependent as the rest of our biosphere. Thus, perceptual shifts alter consciousness, consciousness alters behavior, and even unconscious learnings alter perception.” –Laura Sewall


“We have only to look athe the cross-cultural practices of perennial shamanism to find effective models of applied ecopsychology.” -Leslie Gray
“The worldview of shamanism is that health equals balanced relationships with all living things.”- L.G.

“In indigenous cultures around the world the natural world is regarded as the realm of spirit and the sacred; the natural is the spiritual.” –Ralph Metzner



4 TASKS OF ECOPSYCHOLOGY-
as defined by Andy Fischer in Radical Ecopsychology

 

The Psychological Task- to acknowledge and betther understand the human- nature relationship as relationship.

The Philosophical Task- to place psyche (soul/mind) back into the Natural world. Heal the split.

The Practical Task- to develop therapeutic and recollective practices toward an ecological society.

The Critical Task- to engage in ecopsychologically based criticism.

Note- I am attracted to the philosophical task, because I see the role of poetry and performance in this mission. I believe we need to be rewoven back into our connectedness in a poetic, inviting, and beautiful way. We need the grace and magic of the arts for this mission.

Check out Audette's Summary of the Key Points of Ecopsychology


Thoughts in the vein of Solutions:

- Experiential embodied education
- Anything encouraging and cultivating feelings and experiences of connectedness. That which illuminates   context, root causes, or promoting alternative ways of seeing, investing, and being.
- Holding up perrenial indigenous practices as models, and finding modern versions accesable to modern people
- Any wilderness experience- direct nature contact, especially with any sort of holistic, spiritual, or   transformational framework to it.
- Workshops linking people to their own internal nature/wilderness i.e. creative unconscious via the arts and   shamanic arts
- Safe spaces and rituals for grief, pain, anger- expression and catharsis- release of emotional build-up.
  Re-channeling of raw emotional energy or charge into actions to help the Earth.
- Re-connecting with our ancestry- looking into both our actual ancestors and their stories, and the mythology,   symbols, religion and tradition of the culture of our people. What were their rituals?
- Reawakening the senses- the instinctive and animal self. Trance dance, shamanic journeying, survival skills,   solo time in nature…

THREE INSIGHTS OF ECOPSYCHOLOGY

1. On Human-Nature Relationships
Our views of our relationships to nature are central to our mental health and to the health of the environment. These paradigms govern our feelings and actions toward the environment. Ecopsychology calls for shifting the mainstream paradigm.
A. Nature is a danger or prison and should be controlled and developed. This is the dominant modern Western view, some would say. It may also be a "straw man" in that I doubt few people would explicitly agree with it.
B. Nature is a resource for humans. In the narrow view, it is merely an economic resource, a warehouse. In a broader view, it is also a rec center, amusement park, museum, scientific resource, even a therapist's office and a place of worship. Nature should be used wisely, preserved, protected. Some variation of this view is the dominant modern Western view, I would say. It is found in both the "Wise Use" or development community and the mainstream environmental movement.
C. Nature is Home, and its inhabitants are family. Nature as Mother, teacher, healer, sister/brother. This view brings a deeper bond with nature. Action to protect and preserve nature is based on love.
D. Nature as Self, a holistic, ecocentric, somewhat transpersonal view. Environmental action is then Self-care.
E. "There is no human-nature relationship" &emdash;Daido Loori, a Zen master at the Zen Mountain Monastery. This view suggests a more deeply transpersonal view based on nonduality of nature and humans. (How could he say that...no relationship!? Perhaps he means it as a koan. How do you understand it?)
All but (A) have been associated with Ecopsychology. Most ecopsychologists express (C) and (D) in their work. A few have hinted at (E), the extension I am calling for.

2. On the effects of the disconnection of humans from nature (or more precisely, the illusion of a disconnection)
A. Implications for the environment: non-sustainable behavior and environmental destruction
B. Implications for humans: alienation, denial, numbness, despair, and other forms of psychological and existential suffering
To live in the midst of environmental devastation takes either great denial or big heart and great faith.

3. On reconnecting humans and nature
Renewing the connection between humans and nature is essential for both.
Contact with nature is healthy and healing. There is much research on this point from a variety of theoretical perspectives.
An ecopsychological paradigm shifts the source of environmental action from shame, blame, coercion, and sacrifice to devotion, love, joy, and invitation. Authentic service is selfless and skillful.

Ecopsychology Applications

Wilderness Therapy
Rites of PassageEducation- environmental ethics, social ecology, etc…
Transformative Learning- working with consciousness and perception, breaking down our meme skemes
Activism- Social justice, racism & env. Destruction
Activism that accounts for and addresses deeper levels

 

LINKS

www.ecopsychology.org/
www.geometry.net/detail/science/ecopsychology.html
http://ecopsychology.athabascau.ca/ - online earth in mind
www.ecopsychology.org/explorations.html
http://www.wildernessdrum.com

 

ECOPSYCHOLOGY BOOKS & ARTICLES

Ecopsychology, Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes, and Allen Kanner
Green Psychology, Ralph Metzner
Radical Ecopsychology, By Andy Fishcer
Articles: Awakening the Ecological Unconscious By, Theodore Roszak
Ecopsychology By, John Seed
Shamanism and Ecopsychology By, Leslie Gray