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Ecopsychologist
hopes that individuals and
world re-connect
(April 2006
Issue)
The idea that man has cut himself off from his natural-world roots
is not a new notion. Experts have pointed out that we are not designed
to sit at a computer under fluorescent lights all day. We are not
designed to eat constantly or stay indoors nearly all of our lives.
These are changes that have occurred only during the smallest fraction
of man's existence and changes that we have not evolved to cope
with.
It should not be surprising, therefore, that humans feel a sort
of disconnectedness from the world around them and that that disconnection
would manifest itself psychologically.
The field of ecopsychology is all about helping the individual
and the world as a whole to re-connect. It's an area that seems
well suited to clinical psychology yet there are not many who are
doing this type of work. That situation may change as these ideas
gain more widespread acceptance. Future psychology students may
be shocked to learn how we once treated individuals as just that,
alone in their pain or pathology.
While most in the field live in the Western states, one prominent
ecopsychologist is Sarah Conn, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist with
a private practice in Arlington, Mass. Along with her husband, Lane
Conn, Ph.D., she co-founded The Ecopsychology Institute in Cambridge,
a group of psychologists and other professionals who design ways
to collaborate with other professions and environmental groups.
Conn has taught classes on the subject for more than 15 years including
a class called "Sustainable Design as a Way of Thinking"
at the Boston Architectural Center. She has authored numerous professional
articles and participated in several nation-wide conferences. She
spoke with New England Psychologist's Catherine Robertson
Souter about the field and her take on what ecopsychology has to
offer both the world at large and the world of psychology.
Q: First off, how do you define "ecopsychology?"
A: In our terms, ecopsychology is combining the systems view of
ecology and the systems view of psychology and looking at the human
psyche in the larger context of the Earth as a living system. Psychology
in Western culture has tended to identify pain as a pathology or
sickness in that individual or family. What we are saying is that
we want to look at symptoms as signals of distress in the larger
context. These signals that show up as symptoms in individuals have
information about what's going on in the world as a whole and that
particular individual's unique way of registering it has information
in it for the larger context. This is not unusual for a family systems
theory but we are expanding it to include the larger system of the
Earth.
Q: How did you get involved?
A: We were invited to the first ecopsychology conference in 1992
because we had been teaching a course called "Global Awareness
and Implications for Psychotherapy." Originally, the issue
had to do with the nuclear threat in the 80s but then it emerged
into ecopsychology when environmental issues began to come into
the foreground in the early 1990s.
Q: And that was where the field was first defined?
A: At this first conference, Jeannette Armstrong, a Native American
from the Okanagan tribe from the Northwest had a wonderful word
for insanity. She told us that it had four syllables and each syllable
had a different meaning. The first meant "talking, talking inside
your head;" the second meant "scattered and having no community;"
the third syllable meant "disconnected from the land;" and the fourth
syllable meant "cut off from your whole earth part."
Now, from those four meanings of insanity, we developed four ways
of looking at health in the larger context. From the first syllable
is that what's important is diversity in ways of knowing, not just
the cognitive/analytical but all levels of experience and the imagination
and intuition. That's a real focus for individual therapy, expanding
our ways of knowing and exploring our ways of knowing.
The second arena is looking at one's embeddedness in community
and what has cut it off and how it can be healed; being involved
in all levels of community and aware of support systems and of what
possibilities for participation there are.
The third is connection to the land. One thing I do with clients
is suggest that they find a spot in nature that gets their attention,
a tree or rock or a plot of land or a particular view of the sky.
The important thing is sitting back and seeing what gets your attention
and then spending time with that natural setting. Depending what's
going on in therapy, there could be certain questions that one sits
with, sort of general questions, like "What does my heart desire
right now?" or "How can I honor that desire?"
The fourth aspect of being sane in this Okanagan context is really
opening up to one's part in the whole. We all are both unique individuals
and a part of living systems at all levels.
All of these are intertwined because when you really look at your
connection to the land you begin to pay attention to what your part
is in it.
Q: When people hear the word ecopsychology they think it's about
taking a walk in the woods but from what you are saying, it is also
about being a true member of the human race. We are part of this
Earth both as individuals and as a species.
A: That's the trouble with our way of thinking. We tend to compartmentalize
too much. When we look at community, we say that's just the human
community. An environmentalist would be focusing on the non-human
community. What we are trying to do is connect.
Q: How would this translate for an individual therapy session,
though?
A: In my practice I have included questions in the intake about
what gets your attention in the news or the state of world and about
connection with nature. For some people, it really makes a difference
because the questions enable them to think about it in a way that
they had not been thinking about it before and then it can become
a part of therapy.
I saw the play "Bill W. and Dr. Bob," at the New Repertory Theatre
(in Watertown, Mass.) about Alcoholics Anonymous, and one of the
things that really made a difference with both of them was finding
out that alcoholism was a disease. In the same way, viewing people's
pain as not their own individual pathology but as the way they are
registering what is happening in the larger context really expands
the way they are experiencing their pain. It really does make a
difference with individuals to see it that way.
Q: That would be a major shift for much of the profession.
A: It is a major shift. It just creates space for them to be
with their pain in a different way.
There are many levels in which what we view as individual symptoms
are affected by this larger context. Just watching the news could
reinforce someone's individual depressions, a sense of worthlessness.
After 9/11, we saw it with anxiety levels going up.
Q: How would you recommend a psychologist find out more?
A: The book, "Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind,"
edited by Theodore Roszak, Mary Gomes and Allan Kanner. It has chapters
by a variety of authors. I wrote a chapter as well. It was published
in the 1990s but it is still a great resource. Also, the Journal
of Humanistic Psychology had a whole issue on ecopsychology
several years ago (April 2001). Then there is the ecopsychology
Web site (www.ecopsychology.org) that is great.
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