Project NatureConnect Outcomes 5
Therapy nature and psychology: research in preventatives for stress abuse and disorders
A Survey of Participants continued
Research Questionaire Validates the Webstring Natural Systems Thinking Process for Personal and Global Balance.
The effects of therapy nature and psychology activities in a grant-funded, alternative and holistic courses, training and degree programs online; a sensory science for sustainable personal and environmental well-being.
..PART FIVE
Results of other therapy nature and psychology studies and educational programs show abuse and disorder reduction.
"Dr. Cohen's applied ecopsychology story is not to conquer nature, but to flow, dance and balance with nature and each other, as do all other species. Its research in stress preventatives says that nature consists of attractions, that pain, fear and stress are natural attractions, part of nature's perfection. These natural discomforts are nature's way of telling us we don't have sensory support in this moment. They attract us to follow our other immediate natural attachments. Our discomforts in nature intensified our natural attractions to nurturing, community and trust. They supported our fun and survival and produced abuse and disorder reduction"
Therapy nature and psychology findings
The students in this study could not handle regular school programs. They were 180% below the poverty level, drug or alcohol addicted and suffered poor self-esteem and behaviorial disorders. Some were homeless or in correctional settings. The results of Project Reconnect were overwhelmingly positive with respect to abuse and disorder reduction. The students' growth was later reflected in the improved psychological test scores and analysis (Figure 1), which show lower depression and drug use and higher self-esteem. Research in stress preventatives show the students now personally own activities and rationale for reconnecting with each other and with nature in the environment.
The students bonded as a community. They also bonded to a trashed natural area near their forthcoming new school. To protect the area's integrity and availability for future NSTP activities, these "incapable" youngsters successfully cleaned up, weeded and replanted it, wrote environmental protection grants, and effectively presented their work to Education Boards and Administrators who were intent on paving the area as a parking lot.
The student's sensed that the natural area, like their nature, wanted to recover from the abuse it received from society. They said that, like them, it had been: "hurt, molested, invaded and trespassed," "It wanted to become healthy or die." "It felt trashed and overwhelmed." "It had no power, it needed a fix or help to recover." They wrote: "This wilderness community is being choked by alien plants and stressed by pollution, abandonment and major loss. We, too, are being choked by drugs and alien stories that pollute our natural self. We feel abandoned by our society, treated like garbage, and cut off from nature which fills us with grief. By protecting and nurturing this ecosystem we find the strength to open our minds, hearts, and souls for the survival of our Mother Earth and ourselves."
The state of Earth and its people indicates that mentally and environmentally, we are distressed . This suggests that Project Reconnect used in conjunction with daily stress situations, instead of artificially programmed stress activities, could serve as an ecologically sound citizenship education preventative for chemical, food, social and environmental abuse and disorder reduction
| Student | Beck Depression | Stress Test | Coopersmith Self-Esteem | Barksdale Self-Esteem | Sleep Inventory | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| pre | post | pre | post | pre | post | pre | post | pre | post | |
| S1 | 11 | 0 | 19 | 8 | 9 | 4 | 4 | 30 | 11 | 6 |
| S2 | 9 | 1 | 19 | 12 | 4 | 1 | 33 | 42 | 9 | 7 |
| S3 | 10 | 0 | 17 | 17 | 3 | 3 | 43 | 57 | 4 | 4 |
| S4 | 21 | 5 | 22 | 9 | 13 | 8 | 14 | 26 | 14 | 8 |
| S5 | 5 | 1 | -- | 11 | 9 | 6 | 36 | 39 | 12 | 10 |
| S6 | 17 | 2 | 22 | 14 | 19 | 8 | 2 | 23 | 8 | 9 |
| AV | 12 | 2 | 20 | 12 | 10 | 5 | 22 | 36 | 10 | 7 |
..Note:
Improvement is indicated by an increase in score on the Barksdale
Self-Esteem Index.
..Improvement is indicated on all other
tests and scales by a reduction in score.
Analysis of Therapy Nature and Psychology Pre and Post Data
As the research in stress preventatives raw data easily shows, the group improvement was significant. The average scores changed dramatically. The group score on Beck's Depression inventory reduced from 12.2 to 1.5. Scores on the Stress Test went from 19.8 to 12. Coopersmith Self-Esteem Inventory changed from 9.5 to 5. Average scores of the Barksdale Self-Esteem Inventory rose from 22 to 36.2. (This is the test in which the rising score shows improvement.) Finally, the Sleep Inventory scores improved from 9.7 to 7.3.
In addition to the improved test scores, every students' attendance and academic progress improved while they were in Project Reconnect. No indications of chemical remission were observed 60 days after the program ended. The complete study, available through ERIC, is available on this site. It validates nature connected therapy and psychology helps us produce abuse and disorder reduction
..Additional Therapy Nature and Psychology Studies
EATING DISORDERS
"Since our extreme disconnection from Nature often stresses our psyche into producing the many disorders we and the environment suffer, it is no wonder that learning how to reconnect with Nature helps us recover from these disorders," says Ph.D. recipient Theresa Sweeney at the Institute of Global Education's (IGE) online Ecopsychology degree program. Sweeney, who was plagued by eating disorders, has received her Doctorate with honors from Greenwich University for researching and designing a nature-connected recovery guidebook. Her program enables environmentally caring people to help themselves and others transform many dysfunctions into the rewards from constructive relationships with self, society and Nature. Sweeney says the secret to the program is that it is an enjoyable, personalized and profound team effort for abuse and disorder reduction. "NSTP helped me increase my esteem for natural systems and their cooperative, unifying ways. It enabled me to bring myself, Earth and others into a healing, sustainable, balance."
HYPNOTHERAPY AND DYSFUNCTION
"I have found a marvelous way to sensuously reconnect people to their origins in nature and thereby reduce the stress that underlies many dysfunctions," says Ph.D recipient Mardi Jones at the Institute of Global Education's (IGE) distance learning Ecopsychology degree program. "My nature reconnecting process, aided by hypnosis, plugs my client's abused psyche into Nature's intelligent eons of creative balance and beauty, of which we all are part. The destructive bewilderment from which my clients suffer subsides because they learn how to reconnect, and thereby help Nature heal, their painfully severed connections to natural systems within and around them."On May 8, 2002, Jones, a Greenwich University graduate student in the IGE program, received her Doctorate with high honors by documenting how and why hypnotherapy combined with a genuine nature connecting process dramatically helps clients recover from the abusiveness that has disturbed them. Her doctoral project contributes to personal and environmental health by offering unique training materials for counselors and educators. The materials enable others to achieve her results.
Jone's program incorporates the Natural Systems Thinking Process (NSTP) and was produced under the guidance of its creator, IGE Director, Michael J. Cohen Ed.D., author of Reconnecting With Nature (Ecopress). Research in stress preventatives shows that recovery occurs through by empowering people to share with each other their thoughtful, sensory contacts with attractions in natural systems within and around them. This unification makes available to the public the beneficial nature connection findings reported by Howard Frumpkin, M.D. in the American Journal of Preventative Medicine March, 2001 and those of many other researchers in the field including Pulitizer Prize recipient Dr. E. O. Wilson of Harvard.
CONTINUE TO:
PART SIX: Results of education based on reconnecting with nature.
PROJECT NATURECONNECT
Readily available, online, natural science tools
for the health of person, planet and spiritP.O. Box 1605, Friday Harbor, WA 98250
360-378-6313 <email> www.ecopsych.com
ORGANIC ADVANCED ECOPSYCHOLOGY IN ACTION
The Natural Systems Thinking Process
Dr. Michael J. Cohen, Director
send email
All programs start with the Orientation Course contained in the book
The Web of Life Imperative.
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