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.
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