Ecopsychology: The Environment and Mental and Physical Health: A

J.A. Giuliano Page 1

E c opsychologychallenging our perceptions: a new mode for being

with the earth and ourselves

Jackie A. Giuliano, Ph.D.

E c opsychology: The Environment

and Mental and Physical Health: A

B rief Overview




v A new field rises from this new awakening of the senses:

Ó A T ypical Day On The Earth

☯ 238 ,000 people are added to the world

☯ 1 ,233 people in the U.S . die from smoking related illnesses

☯ 120 ,000 children world-wide die from diarrhea

☯ 180 sq. miles of tropical forests are cleared

☯ 73 tons of topsoil is eroded

☯ 10-100 species are eliminated

☯ 78 million tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide is added to the

atmosphere

☯ 1 ,800 tons of ozone-depleting chloroflourocarbons are added to

the atmosphere

Miller, G. Tyler, Jr. Living in the Environment. Eighth edition, Belmont, California: Wadsworth, 1996.




In one day, people in the United States

☯ Throw out 200,000 tons of edible food

☯ use 313 million gallons of fuel - enough to drain 26

tractor-trailer trucks every minute

☯ take 18 million tons of raw materials from the Earth

☯ Use 6.8 billion gallons of drinking water to flush toilets

☯ Throw 1 million bushels of litter out of car windows

☯ Add 10,000 minks to their closets and coat racks

☯ S pend $200 million on advertising

☯ S aw up 100 million board feet of wood

☯ use 250 ,000 tons of steel

☯ use 187 ,000 tons of paper

Kaufman, Donald G., and Cecilia M. Franz. Biosphere 2000: Protecting our Global Environment. Dubuqe, Iowa: Kendall/Hunt, 1996.




The Cold War is Over??The Cold War is Over??NUCLEAR SUBMARINES Russia U.S.A

Number of Subs 63 36

Number of Subs at Sea 10 20

Megatons of Nuclear Warheads 1,440 1,484

• Russia has the largest submarine in the world, the Typhoon.They have 12 of them.

• One U.S. Trident submarine carries the explosive power of1,000 Hiroshima bombs.

• The locations of the submarines are top secret.




Plant and Animal ResourcesPlant and Animal Resources

☯ In the 1850s, a single migrating flock of passenger

pigeons in the U .S. would darken the sky for four

hours as this 240 mile long by 1 mile wide flock

passed overhead. It contained over 2 billion birds.

Ó B y 1914, the last passenger pigeon, M artha, died in

the Cincinnati Zoo.

☯ They were good to eat and were widely used as

fertilizer.

Ó "stool pigeon"

☯ Over the next 3 decades, humans will hasten over 1

million species to their extinction.




v K nowledge of these horrors has deep

psychological affects.

Ó our concepts of what is safe and what is secure

are challenged

Ó the very air we breath is dangerous

☯ breathing the air in Mexico City is like

smoking 2 packs of cigarettes per day

☯ L argely unaddressed in modern

psychotherapy is the fact that for the first time in

human history, a generation of people can envision a

world that is polluted, poisoned, and devastated.




☯ Thousands of substances produced in our worldtoday are “neurotoxins”Ó they are capable of causing a wide spectrum of

neurological problems that range from mild and transient

to totally debilitating and deadly.

Ó Of the 6 5 ,000 industrial chemicals registered by the U.S .

Environmental Protection Agency, between 3 and 5

percent - 2 ,000 - had neurotoxic potential. Some

researchers put the figure at more than 28 percent or

18,000.

☯ The March of Dimes organization estimates that 5 to 10 percent of

birth defects are the result of environmental toxicity.




☯ M any of the symptoms of toxic mood

disorders are identical to those of

depression and other mental illnesses.

Ó S uch disorders can last for hours, days, or

can reoccur unexpectedly, even when

exposure to the source has ceased.

Ó Symptoms include personality changes,

mental changes, sleep disturbances,

chronic fatigue, and motor incoordination,

to list a few




☯ Psychotherapists of today face the challenge

to investigate the environment in which their

clients live, work, and play

Ó in order to determine if the source of mood

disorders is related to or being exacerbated by

environmental toxicity

Ó E x amining early childhood issues that have gained

preeminence in a client’ s life will be of little value

if the client is also being subjected to a neurotoxic

environment at home, school, or office that is

generating toxic mood disorders

☯ We must examine “planet of origin” issues

Ó as well as family of origin issues




☯ S ubstancesÓ most common are metals such as lead and mercury

Ó certain solvents and gases

Ó pesticides

☯ SolventsÓ benzene, carbon disulfide, methylene chloride,

ketone, are a few of the names of the 49 million

tons of solvents that are produced annually in the

U.S .

Ó 9.8 million workers are exposed to them daily

☯ they are in nail polish, paint, plastics, rubber

cement, furniture and thousands of other

products.

☯ T hey are absorbed through the skin or ingested.




☯ Hundreds of years ago, madness spread among

the mirror-makers of V enice, Italy and the hat

makers of London

Ó linked to inhaling mercury vapors

Ó "mad as a hatter"

☯ mercury was used in the manufacture of the

felt in the hat

☯ in December 1971 in Iraq

Ó 6 ,530 people became ill and 4 5 9 died from bread.

T he seed grain had been treated with a fungic ide

containing methyl-mercury before it was shipped

from Mexico.

☯ T he seed was supposed to be planted, but

instead it was used directly to make bread.




☯ Dose and E x posure

Ó some symptoms can abate within days, once

exposure to the substance has ceased, but

symptoms can reoccur if exposure continues.

☯ Carbon disulfideÓ a solvent used primarily in the rayon and cellophane

industries

☯ causes severe manic-depression

☯ rates of suicide and homicide were once high

among rayon workers

☯ ventilation in the industry has reduced theexposure levels, but symptoms such asdepression, irritability, and insomnia arecommon.




☯ Theodore Roszak, a major contributor to

the definition of this growing new field,

has said

Ó “These commonplace environmental problems

have become the psychopathology of our

everyday life. They reveal a condition of the

soul for which F reud would have had no

name.”

☯ Interconnectedness

Ó Including the examination of environmental

factors in psychotherapy demonstrates the

powerful interconnectedness that exists

between humans and the rest of the world




☯ The traditional Western cultural view that places humans

separate from, and in control of, the world and considers

all that is non-human as inferior needs to be reconsidered

and challenged

Ó Psychology needs to become more dynamic, exploring profound,

largely ignored conscious and unconscious feelings, impulses, and

desires in relation to the physical world, rather than considering

only the variations of neurophysiology or biochemistry that now

dominate the American psychiatric field.




☯ T raining the therapists of tomorrow to

participate in the merger of ecology

and psychology is vital to our

transition

Ó from a world of disconnected, isolated

people to one of interconnected beings,

aware of the subtle connections between

each other and the planet.

☯ This merger of thought between these

two disciplines can

Ó promote mutually enhancing relationships

between humans and our planet.




Our Western Scientific ParadigmOur Western Scientific Paradigm

☯ in the 15 th century, the artistic device of detachment was

invented

☯ linear perspectives emerged

☯ view of the world was out of sensory reach

☯ four social developments that reinforced the dislocation

Ó witch hunts (1 5 th - 18th centuries)

Ó slaughter of indigenous peoples in North America

Ó invention of the mental hospital in the 17 th century☯ (“to shield the public from exposure to people who were capable, in their

minds, of achieving nonordinary states of consciousness or, by their

behaviour, of demonstrating nonordinary realities”) [p. 59]

Ó slavery (the brutal importation of African tribespeople)

Glendinning, Chellis. My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization. Boston: Shambhala, 1994.




In the More Developed Countries☯ our technology and wealth have eliminated most of the problems

plaguing L D C s.

☯ It would cost an estimated $10 billion a year to extend primary

health care to all the world's people. T his is 1/25 what the world

spends each year on cigarettes.

☯ We have replaced them with our own leading causes of pre-maturedeath

m heart disease

m stroke

m cancer

m respiratory infections

m accidents.





Our premature deaths

☯ are largely a result of environmental and lifestyle factors rather

than infectious agents invading the body.

☯ For the most part, they result from chronic diseases that take a long

time to develop, have multiple causes, and are largely related to

m the area in which people live,

m their work environment

m their diet

m whether they smoke

m how much exercise they get

m the amount of alcohol they consume.





Changing the harmful lifestyle factors

☯ could prevent

m 40% to 70% of all premature deaths

m 1/3 of all cases of acute disability

m 2/3 of all cases of chronic disability




Post-traumatic stress syndromePost-traumatic stress syndrome

☯ Are we, as a culture, suffering from PT S D ?

Ó could we be dissociated because we inhabit a culture

that is founded on and perpetrates traumatic stress?

Ó what was our “original trauma?”

☯ could be the systematic removal of our lives from cyclic

participation in the natural world.

☯ began with the domestication of plants and animals

☯ grew in intensity with large-scale civilizations

☯ developed into pathological proportions with masstechnological society

☯ today, we can live a week, a month, even a year withoutsmelling a tree, seeing the passage of the moon, or

meeting an animal in the wild.

☯ the psychic displacement, the exile, that is inherent in

civilized life. It is our homelessness.

Glendinning, Chellis. My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization. Boston: Shambhala, 1994.




☯ Ecopsychology in the classroom

Ó provides fertile ground for developing strategies for awakening the senses

through the prac tice of critical thinking

Ó reawaken our perceptions of taste, smell, sight, hearing, and touch

☯ fundamental avenues of connection between self and the world.

Ó we have deadened our senses to the world




Anxiety F rom Awareness: How Do We Cope?

☯ Until now, every generation throughout history lived with the tacit certainty that other generationswould follow. Each assumed that its children and children's children would carry on - to walk on thesame earth, under the same sky.

☯ That certainty is now lost to us - it is the pivotal psychological reality of our time - we perceive, forthe first time in our history, the possibility of our death as a species.

☯ And we experience

Ó FEAR of the suffering in store for us and loved ones

Ó A N G E R that we live with such a threat and meaningless enterprise

Ó GUILT as members of this society we feel implicated: we should be able to stop

it

Ó S O R R O W c o nfronting so vast and final a loss brings sadness beyond telling




☯ B ut these feelings are inadequate to convey the feelings we experience in this context.

☯ B ut these are not fears of our own individual demise. Their source lies in concerns for

apprehensions of collective suffering, of what happens to others, human life, and

fellow species, to the heritage we share, the unborn generations to come, and to our

green mother Earth herself, wheeling alone in space.

☯ W e are not closed off from the world, but integral components of it, like cells in a

larger body. W hen part of that body is traumatized, we feel the trauma too - in the

suffering of other beings, in the pillage of our planet, and the violation of future

generations.




Another View of “Science”Another View of “Science”

based on “My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery fromWestern Civilization”

by Chellis G lendinning1

[page references in brackets on subsequent pages are from this book]1S hambhala Press, B oston, 1994

A text for Jackie Giuliano’s PSY/SCI 333 Ecopsychology class at Antioch in Winter 1995




Our Western Scientific ParadigmOur Western Scientific Paradigm

☯ in the 15 th century, the artistic device of detachment was

“invented”

☯ linear perspec tives emerged

☯ view of the world was out of sensory reach

☯ four social developments that reinforced the dislocation

Ó witch hunts (15 th - 18th centuries)

Ó slaughter of indigenous peoples in North America

Ó invention of the mental hospital in the 17th centuryÓ (“to shield the public from exposure to people who were capable, in their minds, of achieving nonordinary states of consciousness or, by their behaviour, of

demonstrating nonordinary realities”) [p. 59]

Ó slavery (the brutal importation of African tribespeople)




Descartes' PhilosophiesDescartes' Philosophies

☯ never accept anything for true that you do not clearly know to be such

☯ divide each difficulty to as many parts as possible

☯ go from the simplest to the more complex

☯ repeat the results

☯ said that the soul was separate from the body




Descartes “Cartesian Philosophies”Descartes “Cartesian Philosophies”

☯ had some not-so-good theories of the nature of the universe

☯ on the “nature of man”

☯ said that animals were “automata” - machines

☯ His ideas spread to every country and were popular for severalgenerations

☯ But he laid the foundations and his ideas are rooted in sciencetoday

☯ Although many of the details of his work were wrong, hismechanical view of the body lasts to this day in Westernmedicine




Another way to practice scienceAnother way to practice science☯ catalyze, focus, and harness awareness of

Ó sense of belonging

Ó energetic self-definition

Ó ability to tap into nonordinary realities

☯ vivid memories of ancestors, trance states, unexplainable synchronisticevents, miraculous feats of athletic prowess (S tanislav Grov)

☯ with its demand for quantifiable evidence and laboratory-verifiable proof,the western scientific bias tends to refute the validity of such events.

☯ yet these events have occurred throughout time and continue to occur

Ó nonordinary states of awareness are commonplace, meaningful, and fullyintegrated into the reality of nature-based cultures.

☯ they are regular and commonplace

☯ living in the natural world seems to have much to do with the prevalence ofsuch occurrences

☯ we become slower, calmer, and more attuned

☯ sense of time decelerates - we may detect a spiritual presence in a junipertree or notice the rhythm of intimacy between a flower and a bee.




How to harness these awarenessesHow to harness these awarenesses☯ Nature-based cultures catalyze, focus, and harness such an awareness by

creating a coherent science and technology dedicated to the daily practice

of

Ó spiritual knowledge

Ó healing

Ó ecological living [p.33]

☯ Greg Cajete, a Tewa Indian from Khaa po (Santa Clara Pueblo) challengesthe notion of the supremacy of western empiricism. He redefines science as

Ó “the process by which any culture makes nature and life

accessible to reasoned understanding”




Science developed by indigenous peopleScience developed by indigenous people

☯ starts from the premise that the Earth is living and all facets of life on it are sacred

Ó “all aspec ts of humanity [are] in continuous and dynamic

interrelationship with every other aspect of self and

environment” [Cajete]

Ó such a science includes “research technologies” such as

☯ fasting

☯ herbs and psychotropic plants

☯ sweat lodges

☯ ceremonies

☯ quests into the wilderness




Systems of thoughtSystems of thought

☯ available to everyone

☯ define the human place in the universe as one of respectful

belonging

Ó provides a basis for unmediated communication with theforces of the natural world

Ó our rigid definition of “self” and belief in a system of abstractsymbols limits the possibility of “unmediated communication”

Ó “when nature-based peoples speak of dreams, visions, spirit visitations, bodilyknowings, ceremonial unity, and guidance from animals and plants, they are notspeaking of imaginary of hallucinatory experience, projection, or the stuff of thecollective unconscious. They are speaking of actual events of reality, of a world thatis as viable and verifiable as the soil beneath their feet” [p. 34]




Psychology: Evolution and

Influences



with the earth and ourselvesPsychology: Evolution and Influences1

☯ shaped by the Cartesian way of thinking

☯ sharp distinction between mind and body

☯ three schools

Ó analyze consciousness

Ó analyze behavior

Ó psychoanalysis (Freud)

☯ incorporate the concepts of Newtonian mechanics into their

theoretical frameworks

1 from Fritjof Capra’s The Turning Point , B antam B ooks: New Y ork, 1983




Psychology: Evolution and Influences

☯ modern psychology was a result of nineteenth-century developments in anatomy

and physiology

☯ four basic psychoanalytical perspectives:

Ó topographic, dynamic, economic, and genetic

☯ corresponds to the four basic concepts of Newton

Ó absolute space and time, separate material objects

Ó fundamental forces

Ó laws describe motion and interactions in terms of

mathematics

Ó objective description of nature; division of mind and matter




Psychology: Evolution and Influences

☯ F reudian psychotherapy neglects the body

Ó taboo against physical contact: most therapists will not even

shake your hand

☯ in the F reudian model there is no room for experiences of

altered states of consciousness

Ó labelled psychotic




Historical Influences




☯ People began to settle in one place

Ó build storage structures

☯ to accumulate more possessions than they could

carry on their backs

Ó housing

Ó “the seeds of private property and c lass stratification

were also sown”

☯ Sedentary communities

Ó women began to have more babies

Ó the nature of women’s participation changed




Role of Women

☯ different for sedentary lifestyle than gathering

lifestyle

Ó intense preparation, maintenance, harvesting of

cultivated land

Ó carrying a child and doing this work became truly

burdensome

Ó children could be contained within pens or special

rooms




☯ lengthy breast feeding was discontinued

☯ high protein diets replaced with high carbohydrate diets

☯ ovulation became more regular

Ó babies were now born more often

☯ work was becoming more tedious and stressful

☯ the first perpetrators of overuse

Role of Women (continued)




☯ each technological change created the need for

some

Ó personal adjustment

Ó social reaction

Ó other invention that would ease the impact of or solve a

problem caused by the last change

☯ trends toward

Ó efficiency, standardisation, mechanisation




Disconnection

☯ an unprecedented way of life arose out of the

initial act of severing the human world from the

wild




Food Resources:

An example of disconnection




Food Resources

☯ 80,000 species of plants that we know of are edible

☯ only 30 crops feed the world and fewer than 20

produce 90% of our food.

☯ wheat, rice, corn, and potato make up more of the

world's total food production than all others

combined.




Our Food Choices☯ Factory Farming

Ó use of chemicals

Ó inhumane treatment

☯ The Food and Drug Administration

Ó established in 1906

Ó food additives were not monitored or regulated until 1958

Ó before then, hundred of additives were used with out regulation.

☯ In 1958, the FDA drew up a list of those additives in use at the time andasked experts to give their professional opinion on their safety.

☯ The resulting list of 415 substances was published in the GenerallyRecognized As S afe (GRAS) list. S ince then, testing has banned anumber of substances on that original list.




Pesticides and Pest Control

☯ W ith the planting of single crop fields as the primary focus

of agriculture since 1945, pestic ides have become part of the

process.

☯ M ajor Categories of Pesticides

Ó herbicides

Ó insecticides

Ó fungicides

Ó rodenticides




T rauma and the Psychological

Cost of Environmental Abuse




Post-traumatic stress syndromePost-traumatic stress syndrome

☯ Are we, as a culture, suffering from PT S D ?

Ó could we be dissociated because we inhabit a culture that is

founded on and perpetrates traumatic stress?

Ó what was our “original trauma?”

☯ could be the systematic removal of our lives from cyclicparticipation in the natural world.

☯ began with the domestication of plants and animals

☯ grew in intensity with large-scale civilizations

☯ developed into pathological proportions with mass technological

society

☯ today, we can live a week, a month, even a year without smelling

a tree, seeing the passage of the moon, or meeting an animal in the

wild.

☯ the psychic displacement, the exile, that is inherent in civilizedlife. It is our homelessness.




Chronic TraumaChronic Trauma

☯ “A chronic disaster is one that gathers force slowly and

insidiously, creeping around one’s defenses rather than

smashing through them.” [Kai E rikson]

T o make a prarie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee,and revery.The revery alone will doIf bees are few.

Emily Dickinson




Psychological Cost of Environmental Abuse1

☯ DISB E L IEF which leads to DENIAL

☯ DOUBLE LIFE we lead our lives as if nothing has changed, but everything is

changed. Until we find ways of acknowledging and integrating that level of

anguished awareness, we repress it; and with that repression we are drained of the

energy we need for action and clear thinking.

☯ Each of us has the capacity to drop everything and act. T hat power to act is ours in

the present situation of peril, all the more so since we are not alone. No outside

authority is silencing us; no external force is keeping us from responding with all our

might and courage. It is something inside us that stifles our responses.

1 Joanna Macy, Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age , New Society Publishers: PA, 1983




Fears

☯ FEAR OF PAIN

☯ FEAR OF APPEARING MORB ID

☯ FEAR OF APPEARING STUPID having no answer to present

☯ FEAR OF GUILT we feel implicated

☯ FEAR OF CAUSING DISTRESS

☯ FEAR OF PROVOKING DISASTER

☯ FEAR OF APPEARING UNPATRIOTIC

☯ FEAR OF SOWING PANIC

☯ FEAR OF RELIGIOUS DOUB T

☯ FEAR OF APPEARING TOO EMOTIONAL




☯ for centuries the dominant W estern culture has erected a dichotomybetween reason and emotion. Those are "just" feelings, we are often told,

frequently dismissed in ourselves and others as self-indulgent, idealistic,and responsible.

☯ S E NSE OF A SEPARATE EX ISTENCE

☯ FEAR OF FEELING POWERLESS I don't think about it because there isnothing I can do about it.




Effects of Repression

☯ FRAGMENTATION AND ALIENATION self doubt cuts us off from ourdeep sources of creative power.

☯ DISPLACEMENT ACTIVITIES we turn increasingly to a desperate pursuit of

pleasure and other short-term goals: consumption of goods, sex, drugs, entertainment,

the pursuit of money.

☯ POLITICAL PASSIVITY

☯ D E S T R U C T I V E B E HAVIORS

☯ PSYCHOLOGICAL PROJECTION we demonize the R ussians, we seek scapegoats.




☯ R E S ISTANCE TO PAINFUL INFORMATION

☯ DIM INIS H E D I N T E L L E C T U A L P E R F O R M A N C E

☯ B U R N-OUT

☯ S E N S E O F P O W E R L E S S N E S S

☯ Each act of denial, conscious or unconscious, is an abdication of our powers to

respond.

☯ W e are immobilized by the fear of moving through that pain. B ut it is only when we

can honestly contemplate this horror that we can begin to master it. Until we have

done so, the pain and fear "have" us in their grip. J ung said that there is no birth of

consciousness without pain.




☯ M assaged babies gain weight 50 % faster than

unmassaged babies

Ó more active, alert, responsive, aware

Ó better able to tolerate noise

Ó more stable emotionally

☯ W e are brought up to perceive objects

Ó how would it be different if we were to shift to,

as L aura S ewall says, to perceiving contexts and

relationships

Our Sense of Touch




Chronic TraumaChronic Trauma

☯ “A chronic disaster is one that gathers force

slowly and insidiously, c reeping around one’s

defenses rather than smashing through them.” [Kai

E rikson]

T o make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee, One clover, and a bee,and reverie.The rever ie alone will doIf bees are few.

Emily Dickinson




☯☯ Healing the Schism Between MindHealing the Schism Between Mindand Bodyand BodyÓ It may be impossible to learn, to reason, to

think critically, or to solve problems

without involving a part of your life that

you may have rarely considered - your

body. W ithout integrating your mind with

your body, the information and data are

hollow, lifeless.

2 Heckler, Richard Strozzi, The Anatomy of Change, Boston: Shambhala, 1985.




☯☯ Act From Our Energy, and NotAct From Our Energy, and NotFrom Our IdeasFrom Our IdeasÓ W hen we place our attention in our

body, we begin to feel, and our feeling

connects us to our energy. Our energy

then informs us of our direction and

meaning in life. If we respond from our

energy, we are responding form that

part of ourselves that is least

conditioned. If we act from our energy,

and not from our ideas, social images,

or what others expect, we feel enriched

with genuine expression and life.

2 Heckler, Richard Strozzi, The Anatomy of Change, Boston: Shambhala, 1985, p.9




☯ Modes for Healing

Ó have you ever considered prescribing

turning off the television and not

☯ watching the evening news

☯ reading the morning paper

Ó Eating a diet that is supportive of

beliefs.

Ó F inding a special place in nature and

develop a weekly relationship with it.

☯ M any things can be done to heal

our disconnection with the natural

world.




Therapeutic Modes for an Integrated World

☯ V alidate feelings of distress for the world - feelings of

distress for the world are a testimony to a person's

openness and compassion. As such, they allow you to

point our qualities that can enhance your client's self-

esteem.

☯ E ncourage disclosure - Ask if they ever worry about what

might happen to their world. Invite them to describe what

they expect the world to be like in ten or twenty years (not

what they see themselves doing)

☯ clients are often reluctant to mention global problems,

thinking that the counseling setting is only for " personal"

problems and fear that the counselor will treat their

despairs in a patronizing or reductionistic fashion.Macy, Joanna. Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1983.




☯ the expression of the pain for the

world releases energy and enhances

appreciation for life (creates little risk

of incurring fatalism or obsession with

doom)

☯ Encourage assertive response - get

them to reject the role of a victim,

being oppressed by the current

situation and feeling powerlessness.

☯ a guide walks with, offering the

reassurance of your presence and

understanding and the resources of

your training and experience.

Macy, Joanna. Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1983.




☯ Countering fatalism - the loss we

are experiencing is the loss of

certainty that there will be a future,

not loss of the future itself.

☯ We are in a time of transition,

learning how to live with our

mortality as a species

☯ D iscourage the client from letting

their anxiety or anger serve as a

pretext for self-defeating behaviors.





☯ R e-evaluate the c lient role - instead of a

case to be solved, the client is a fellow-

journeyer, a gift, whose felt responses to a

world in pain increases our own

understanding of that world.

☯ do not try to solve the problem because

the pain for the world is a given,

unavoidable and incurable. Help clients

wrestle with it and help them discover

their compassion and courage from that

engagement.





The DSM - IV

☯ An inadequate tool for

ecopsychology

Ó 300 .29 Specific Phobia

(pp.405-6) includes “Animal

Type and Environment Type.”

Ó 307 .45 Circadian R hythm S leep

Disorder (pp.573-578) is at least

a recognition of the importance

of natural rhythms in our mental

and physical health.




Challenge the Classical Notions of Therapy

☯ To be a complete person, you must have an

intimate bond with your natural

surroundings.

☯ Have therapy take on a broader context:

Ó have clients look into their consumer

behavior

Ó become clearer about the role advertising

plays in the formation of our identities

☯ E x amine technology

Ó technology is not neutral - it's not just how

we use it that defines it

Ó we are changed by it: it affects our

perception of time, distance, space, reality




The Impact of Feeling More Connected to the

Natural World

☯ W hen you notice the seasons, the night time sky,

the weather, it changes the concept of "self"

☯ if we look at our relationships with the natural

world as well as the human world, we develop a

whole new language to describe the quality of

those relationships

☯ and we will think twice about harming the

natural world because, ultimately, it is harming

ourselves.




Purpose, Vision and M ission

Helping students of all ages focus and think

critically

*Adapted from a workshop by Sabina Spencer

Jackie A. Giuliano*




Examining Our Purpose

☯ W hat would you take a stand for?

☯ W hat do you want to be remembered for?




Build Your Life Purpose Statement - First Draft

☯ L ife Purpose S tatement

Ó A. write your 2 or 3 strongest gifts, skills, or strengths

Ó B . write 2 of your modes of expression of these gifts

Ó C . write 2 or 3 adjectives that describe your ideal world

☯ My purpose in life is to use my <A> through <B> tofoster a world that is <C>.

☯ S hare your statements with your group and feel free to change or add to yourstatements with elements that you heard from others.




Constantly Refine and Review Your “Purpose”

☯ “Purpose” evokes spirit

☯ “Purpose” can be a guiding light

during times of personal change

and transition




The Vision

☯ Now that you have the “purpose,” you need a

“vision.”

☯ Meditate and visualize an ideal day one year from

now. Take a few minutes to do this. W hen you are

done, take notes on your observations of the

following elements of your life:Ó Physical body

Ó M ental health

Ó Emotional/S piritual

Ó Relationships

Ó M aterial

Ó W ork/Hobbies/O ther




Grounding the Vision

☯ Y our vision needs to be grounded in action

☯ Identify Choices

Ó L ife Choice

Ó Daily Choice: the daily activity you will do to implement the life choice

Ó Challenge Choice: something immediate that will make the “daily

choice” happen

☯ LIFE CHOICE DAILY CHOICE CHALLENGE CHOICE

be true to my needs get quality time alone examine my current

relationship

☯ B e conscious of the moment

Ó avoid the “Dammit, I did it again” syndrome

Ó choose to make a change

Ó be conscious of the challenge




☯ B ibliography

1. B adiner, Allan Hunt, ed. Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in B uddhism and Ecology. B erkeley, California: ParallaxPress, 1990.

2. Change, Center for Psychology and Social. “Statement of Purpose for an Ecopsychology Conference for Psychology andSocial Change”. Center for Psychology and Social Change, 1994.

3. Hillman, James. Re-Visioning Psychology. New Y ork: Harper and Row, 1975.

4. Hillman, James and Michael Ventura. W e've Had a Hundred Y ears of Psycho Therapy And the World's Getting Worse.S an Francisco: Harper Collins, 1992.

5. Mack, John E. "Inventing a Psychology of Our Relationship to Earth." ReVision 14 (2 1991): 103.

6. Macy, Joanna. Despair and Personal Power in the Nuclear Age. Philadelphia, PA: New Society Publishers, 1983.




☯ B ibliography (continued)

7. Macy, Joanna. "The Greening of the Self." In Dharma Gaia: A Harvest of Essays in B uddhism and Ecology, ed. AllanHunt B adiner. B erkeley, California: Parallax Press, 1990.

8. Moore, Thomas. Care of the Soul: A Guide for Cultivating Depth and S acredness in Everyday Life. New Y ork: HarperPerennial, 1992.

9. Roszak, Theodore. The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology. New Y ork: S imon Schuster, 1992.

10. Upton, Arthur C., M.D. and Eden Grabber M.S. S taying Healthy in a Risky Environment: The New Y ork UniversityMedical Center Family Guide. New Y ork: S imon and Shuster, 1993.

11. Roszak, Theodore, et.al., editors, Ecopsychology: R estoring the Earth, Healing the Mind, S an Francisco, Sierra ClubB ooks, 1995.

12.Glendinning, Chellis, My Name is Chellis and I’m in Recovery from Western Civilization, B oston, S hambhala, 1994.

13. Singer, Raymond M., Neurotoxicity Guidebook, New Y ork: Van Nostrand, 1990.




The Dalai Lama saidThe Dalai Lama said

☯“Without inner peace, it is

not possible to have world

peace.”Ó Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama of T ibet1

Ingram, Cathrine, ed., In The Footsteps of Gandhi, Parallax Press: Berkeley, 1990, p.11




☯“The real miracle is not

to walk on water or in

thin air, but to walk on

the Earth.”Ó Thich Nhat Hanh1

Ingram, Cathrine, ed., In The Footsteps of Gandhi, Parallax Press: Berkeley, 1990, p.79

Ecopsychology: The Environment and Mental and Physical Health: A

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