Tour Station 2 of 6 |
AN OVERVIEW ARTICLE
The following is updated from
Psychology Today,
May-June 1994:
Applied Ecopsychology: Counseling
and Educating With Nature
From the druids of the Celtic forests to
the great tribes of American Indians, people have sought peace
and wisdom by living according to the laws of Mother
Nature.
Unfortunately, this century will be remembered for unprecedented
exploitation of nature--and widespread psychological disturbance
of individuals.
No coincidence to Michael J. Cohen,
Ed.D., pioneer of what he calls integrated ecology or applied
ecopsychology. A synthesis of ecology and psychology, integrated
ecology proposes that both the destruction of the Earth's environment
and people's isolation, stress and dysfunction stem from a fundamental
separation and denial of our connection to nature. And by reconnecting
with nature, no surprise, we reverse our disorders.
Western civilization emphasizes only the faculties of sight,reason,
and language, forcing most of us to suppress our natural senses--all
53 of them, by Cohen's reckoning. Among them: hunger, thirst,
compassion; color, sex, place; community, nurturing and peace.
Spending over 95% of our lives cloistered and indoors leaves
these natural sensory connections excessively wanting; human
dysfunction and evils - cigarette smoking to greed to violence-
naturally follow.
Cohen is not a lone hunter of the bond between man and nature.
According to Pulitzer-Prize winning sociobiologist Edward O.
Wilson, Ph.D., of Harvard, people have an inherent biological
need to be in contact with the out-of-doors. He calls it "biophilia",
and believes that nature may hold the key to our aesthetic, intellectual,
cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction. Our childhood love
of animals and natural myths and fairy tales may be early evidence
of our basic affinity for nature and its instructive and healing
properties.
Counseling and building responsible relationships by reconnecting
with nature? Cohen has devised therapeutic home study training
manuals, workshops, on-site
and e-mail/correspondence courses,
discussion groups , newsletters
and degree programs whose activities,
in backyards or back country, re-create many beneficial relationships
enjoyed by earlier hunting, gathering, and communal living. In
the American Psychological Association Journal "The Humanistic
Psychologist" (Vol. 21, No. 3) and other professional publications,
he reports that while on these education programs community spirit
and responsibility grows, participant's personality and eating
disorders subside, learning and other cognitive abilities improve,
and violence and prejudice dissolve. His participant's learn
to do, own and teach unforgettable nature connecting activities
that produce these results throughout their lives. Gradually,
a deep environmental literacy evolves
that rejuvenates their natural senses, balance and joy.
From his home base at the Insititute
of Global Education, in association with the United Nations
Office of Public Information, Cohen offers books, workshops,
training programs and information about
ecologically oriented education and therapeutic methods."
He is the recipient of the Distinguished
World Citizen Award whose outdoor education activity book
Connecting With Nature contributed to
Vice President Albert Gore's book Earth in Balance.
Educators, counselors and non-professionals interested in the
values of nature-connected learning, literacy, mental health
and spirituality, have incorporated Dr. Cohen's activities in
their work.