Ecopsychology is a field of psychology that explores the connection between the human psyche and the environment we live in. Some of the disciplines of ecopsychology explore an emotional bond between humans and the world around us, while others focus on more spiritual connections with nature.
Linda Buzzell defined Ecopsychology as “basically the study of the human-nature relationship, or the human relationship with the rest of nature, and the nature inside of ourselves.”
In the context of depth psychology, this connection is often explored via image, archetype and metaphor. The alchemical idea “as within, so without” (or “as above, so below”) is what we consider when encountering the natural world and its intersections with human mental health and self-understanding.
History of Ecopsychology
The transdisciplinary field of ecopsychology has roots in the theories of Sigmund Freud as well as C.G. Jung. The book The Earth has a Soul edited by Meredith Sabini includes an organization of Jung’s various quotes in this regard.
Robert Greenway began studying the “marriage” between the mind and nature in the 1960s, publishing essays for thirty years in that regard. He was a contributing author to the Sierra club book Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind by editors Theodore Roszak, Mary E. Gomes, and Allen D. Kanner. This 1995 book gave a vocabulary to the interconnectedness of world and mind. The text grew out of a 1992 book by the same trio of authors called The Voice of the Earth.
Ecopsychology was primarily around the connections between climate change and the increase in depression and anxiety in people impacted by great environmental destruction. Jerry Mander responded to the text saying “… the natural world is not just an ‘environment’ around us, but it is us, existing inside our souls and minds. Old ideas about human beings above nature or somehow separate, or unaffected, may now be tossed in the wastebasket with all the other flat earth theories; what happens to the natural world happens to us.”
As climate change accelerates, and climate anxieties rise, the studies and fields of ecopsychology continue to grow a mounting field of evidence in its favor. Richard Louv’s 2005 book Last Child in the Woods is credited with coining the term “Nature Deficit Disorder” and explores more of the ways cognitive function is connected with spending time in nature.
In a 2009 follow-up to the earlier book, author Craig Chalquist and editor Linda Buzzell created Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature In Mind. Ecotherapy is described as applied ecopsychology. This includes practical nature-based methods of psychological healing. This includes treating patients outdoors, using practices such as “forest bathing” and assignments such as walking in parks, or even taking care of houseplants.
The use of Ecopsychology in Burnout Recovery
Burnout Recovery uses the metaphorical approach to using nature’s wisdom to gain insight into our psychological challenges.
Throughout the book, the environmental reality of wildfire (made worse by climate change) is used to teach readers about the internal fires of burnout (made worse by late-stage capitalism). The cycles and seasons of wildfire can help us conceptualize the healing and recovery process of burnout. More importantly, they shed a light on recovery steps we might otherwise miss.
In Burnout Recovery, there are four main stages of burnout that are explored: fire, flood, regrowth, and prevention. In most books about burnout, only the fire portion of the cycle is really discussed. There may be a brief nod to the joys of regrowth, but modern studies on burnout are focused only on putting out fires. Burnout Recovery explores the ways wildfires teach us to recover from the fire and reduce the risk of burning again.
For a brief one-hour series of videos about the burnout cycle, and the “flood” portion of burnout, the author offers this free training. The book Burnout Recovery expands on and deepens this metaphor and its wisdom even further.