In Ecopsychology, a human is looked upon as a whole organism connected fully with all of living earth, and even Cosmos, to find sustenance, support, healing, and belonging. That is, you are a product of nature and nurture together. 

All organisms that exist support your existence. The millions of cells and micro-organisms that comprise you, also comprise, in air, water and soil,other organisms.  So what you are is literally life itself, connected to other life.

Modern anxiety is due to human disconnection. We no longer live close to earth and so we are now products of alienation.

Our exploitation of life to sustain human life has caused some tense relationships.  It can be reduced by finding common ground.  The common ground, can literally be, the soil of the earth.  People who plant seeds together, nurture them as a team, spend time invigorating their full senses, and living in the moment of those senses, often experience profound healing.

It is the same story for intergenerational conflicts. Common ground can begin with a story a parent or grandparent tells about what they remember form their childhood spent in a woods, on a farm, or even just their own garden, or park. Then the child, be they adult child or not, tells a similar story. Sometimes lost joys, sorrows, ancient grief and alienation stories erupt from this exercise, so being prepared to contain it safely is the task of the counselor present. Anxiety reduction flows from immersion of the senses.

So in the twenty first century, we are largely defined by what we are NOT.  We are not in touch with the source of our food, air, shelter and clothing.  Few people think about the life of the forest that gave them a house, or computer.

We are connected by technology, but only to other humans, and often they too, are disconnected to the earth that sustains them with clean air, water, soil and shelter, all of which are rapidly becoming rare now.

There are ways to re connect to what determines who you are.  When outdoors, especially on a fair day, tensions are reduced by heightening the senses.  In Ecopsychology, we begin with 53 senses, (more on this in a moment), and go from there.  When two or more people share the same space with singing birds, waving grass, buzzing bees, and so on, they automatically begin on common ground. The topic of a conflict is introduced, and before going further, parties are asked to share what they sense from the place and time, and what they feel grateful for physically, emotionally, mentally, and if they wish, spiritually. Then they may phrase their concern about the relationship with the understanding that no judgment of them will be assessed, and they are in a safe place with support from all present, including nature itself.

Depending upon how advanced the parties are in Ecopsychology settings, the support they are offered may be understood as initial support, in that the other party cared enough to show up, therapist support, and in an ever widening circle of belonging, they are allowed to offer what support they may feel from filtered sunlight, oxygen created by plants, the beauty of the sky, thirst quenching clouds, and so on.

The basis of comprehending healing in Ecopsychology, both to what we are now, with a common “dis” ease in our separation, is realizing all of us are alienated from earth when we are taught as children to exploit, rather than celebrate and cherish all natural systems.  Its basis is largely in Sociobiology, which recognizes no organism exists without its environment, and every living thing co-evolved with other co-evolving organisms. Once this is understood, feeling the support provided by life striving to exist with life, in a shared balance of laws of attraction, is seen as healing.

It departs radically from traditional psychology, in that it goes far beyond the mind, yet Ecopsychology never wanders far from the consciousness.  Awareness, as realized by the senses, is constantly recreated in any nature connection, and/or support activities.

Studies done with children, especially in homes with addiction, or high stress confirm that children immersed with their whole bodies, in natural settings, are far more likely to avoid addictions,  anxieties, obesity, fighting and other anti-social behaviors, and symptoms of ADD, (Attention deficit Disorder,  and ADHD, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder.) Books, such as The Last Child in the Woods, attest to these findings and cite many more sources than can be covered in this article.

What are the fifty three senses?  Fifty three senses, (and counting), are those aspects of our minds, sense organs, and bodies, that include, but are not limited to, sight, sound, smell, taste and touch.  One such sense is thirst, another is sense of gravity, another is sense of reason and cogitation, and yet another is a sense of balance, and community.

Awareness of a sense of belonging is the grounding center stone of Ecopsychology. In the present moment awareness of what you feel, you may begin to determine what you are.  What really determines who you are? The dance of being and how actively connected to it and aware of it that you are. You are a body of atoms become aware of your own existence.

When you realize that even a tree has a fundamental “awareness” of its existence, as does any system of cells and flow, such as a river, a forest, an organ, or a collection of them, you begin to know, if that is the right word, the many, many inter actions that determine what, and who, you are.