Earth Equity News

'Eco-Therapy,' a Growing Movement. By Bryan Walsh, Time, July 28, 2009. "A new and growing group of psychologists believes that many of our modern-day mental problems, including depression, stress and anxiety, can be traced in part to society's increasing alienation from nature. The solution? Get outside and enjoy it... Eco-therapists point out that human beings have evolved in synchrony with nature for millions of years and that we are hard-wired to interact with our environment -- with the air, water, plants, other animals... 'We began to get the impression that we were somehow above and separate from nature,' says Craig Chalquist, an instructor at John F. Kennedy University in San Francisco and co-editor with Buzzell-Saltzman of the new book Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind... Getting it back doesn't have to be difficult, according to eco-therapists, most of whom, unsurprisingly, practice in California. Patients' treatment typically begins with starting a nature journal, in which they record how much time they spend outside. The results can often be shocking, says Buzzell-Saltzman. 'Some patients find they spend less than 15 to 30 minutes a day outside, other than walking to and from their cars,' she says. Eco-therapists counsel patients to slow down and reconnect with nature by hiking, gardening or simply taking walks outdoors... It may be that eco-therapy is less a practical psychological treatment than a timely philosophy that connects common feelings of isolation and stress with the fact that the world in which we live is slowly becoming something it shouldn't be. And with worsening climate change and a relentless drumbeat of bad news about our endangered environment, it seems our eco-anxiety may be far from being cured. 'Ultimately, what we need to do is change human behavior,' says Buzzell-Saltzman."