History/Context

Adopted by: Hilary MJ and Tania

General

In one sense, ecopsychology has been primarily a phenomenon of the modern western dominated cultures. In these cultures, since the 1960’s and 70’s, there has been a growing interest in bringing together the various schools of western psychology and psychological healing, with an increasingly urgent awareness of our deepening environmental crisis. The unsustainable and earth consuming economic and social systems of these ‘industrial growth societies’ have led many within these very societies to attempt to change this destructive form, and some of these to enquire into its psychological and spiritual roots. Much of modern ecopsychology therefore has arisen in the USA, and Canada, but we are aware also of roots in Australia, South Africa, and Norway, as well as our own UK movement, for example.

On the other hand, psychological and spiritual understanding of how to live sustainably, wisely and happily on the earth is very ancient, and distress about our shared situation is of course widespread. Initiatives to respond to the situation are surely arising in every country and every people of the world, from the many calls for change from indigenous and displaced native peoples, through to the occasional corporate think-tank. As UK based ecopsychologists, the authors have ongoingly found that there are many others all around the UK who are inspired to initiate some work or project of a broadly ecopsychological nature, whatever name they may give to it. Perhaps these are ideas whose time has come, and so there is a growing momentum and a certain unstoppability to this movement. (see Paul Hawken’s superb and moving speech on the arising of the vast movement of which Ecopsychology is one part http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=N1fiubmOqH4 )

For papers on origins of Ecopsychology see:

Wrestling with Arne Naess: A Chronicle of Ecopsychology’s Origins

by Mark Schroll http://trumpeter.athabascau.ca/index.php/trumpet/article/view/940/1353

This paper is good but not comprehensive, and is particularly USA and male focussed. It would be good if someone could fill in on the rest.... can someone write something here?

Perhaps we need to put something in about development of Naropa course, as well as Wilderness work? Seems to me this was a vital part of ecopsychology origins, and no accident that ecopsych arose in places like USA, Australia, Sth Africa and Norway as there is such a strong movement for spending time in the wilds in all those places. Could Tania/Dave/Martin/someone write this? Or maybe it comes in later in the wilderness section?

UK Ecopsychology Movement

Since the mid-nineties, that broad ‘idea whose time has come’ has grown and expressed itself in many interconnected forms throughout the UK. Rather than our attempting to sketch an inevitably incomplete and partial chronological listing of these initiatives, we suggest that this website – covering as it does articles, books, speeches, courses and practitioners own websites – tells its own story. Hilary suggests delete all the rest from here!......What follows is an (incomplete) sketch of some of this exciting rush of initiatives. It would take much more space to trace a really coherent line of development here, but as you move around this website we hope the links between different ideas and practices will make increasing sense.

In 1995, a political organisation called Psychotherapists and Counsellors for Social Responsibility (PCSR) was founded (http://www.pcsr.org.uk ) Many different working subgroups emerged out of PCSR and one of them was The Ecopsychology Group, founded by Tania Dolley and Hilary Prentice; over time this became a very active group of ten therapists. While they were diverse in their theoretical orientations, what they shared in common was a commitment to weaving together psychology, ecology, politics and spirituality. Having wrestled with the issues, reviewed the US literature, and wondered what else was going on in the UK, we began to write articles and papers for publication, to run workshops and to speak at conferences.

As more and more people contacted us, excited about what we were doing, and relieved to find others thinking along similar lines to themselves, we worked to put people in touch with each other. Hilary and Tania then founded and administered the UK Ecopsychology Network, a list of over 100 people with a few simple newsletters produced. A first UK networking day was held in 1997, by which time we had linked up with the UK Institute of Deep Ecology. Since that time Chris Johnstone’s Great Turning Times has been an invaluable point of coordination and sharing of information about everything in both deep ecology and Ecopsychology in the UK. (www.greatturningtimes.org )

Tania Dolley and Brendan Hill were two of the many organisers of an international conference called ‘For the Love of Nature’. This took place in 1999 at Findhorn, Scotland (www.findhorn.org).

John Seed, an Australian Rainforest Activist (www.rainforestinfo.org.au) has offered Deep Ecology workshops and Joanna Macy has offered intensives in The Work that Reconnects (www.joannamacy.org). These experiences were invaluable for our own process, helping us to further build experiential exercises and ways of thinking about ecopsychology.

Tania and Brendan wrote the first UK Ecopsychology module as part of the Masters Degree in Human Ecology, taught at the Centre for Human Ecology in Edinburgh (http://www.che.ac.uk) . Tania, Brendan and Hilary taught this course from 2001 – 2004. Dave Key and Mary-Jayne Rust have continued to teach it since, while CHE has become part of the University of Strathclyde (http://gs.strath.ac.uk/content/view/82/10/).

In parallel, there have been many related initiatives around the country. For example Jenny Grut’s pioneering therapy work with asylum seekers and refugees on allotments, integrating the powerful metaphors of working with the land as part of healing the human psyche. (see www.torturecare.org.uk ; Healing Fields by Jenny Grut); Ambra Burls has organised conferences within academic and practical contexts in the South East (website??); Graham Game has developed ecotherapy workshops (http://www.ecoshaman.moonfruit.com); Kaye Richard’s work with adventure therapy and eating disorders (http://www.therapytoday.net/archive/dec2005/cover_feature1.html ); Dave Key and Mary-Jayne Rust have developed Ecotherapy courses in Scotland (http://www.footprintconsulting.org/courses/45-courses/80-human-nature-wild-nature-deep-sustainability-through-ecotherapy ), Paul Maiteny’s development of Education in Sustainability at South Bank University, Nick Totton embodied relational therapy (www.erthworks.org ).

More recent work includes: Mary-Jayne Rust’s work in writing and speaking about unconscious processes in relation to climate change (www.mjrust.net); Zita Cox’s development of Environmental Constellations (www.envionrmentalconstellations.org); Nick Totton’s development of embodied relational therapy (http://www.erthworks.co.uk ); Dave Key and Jules Weston initiating the Natural Change Project within WWF (www.naturalchange.org ), and Martin Jordan is developing psychotherapy outdoors www.ecotherapy.org) ; and many more. …………..Others in the new group, including websites, initiatives re journal, book etc

An exciting recent initiative, perhaps made possible by some of this earlier work, has been an ‘ecopsychological’ contribution to the Transition Towns movement. This movement began in 2006 in Totnes, Devon, and arose in response to the reality of Peak Oil and Climate Change. This is fast spreading around the world (www.transitiontown.org; www.transitionculture.org; ), A group looking at the consciousness and process aspects of transition to a sustainable and non oil- dependant culture was active within Transition Town Totnes (‘TTT’) from the beginning. Begun by Hilary Prentice and Sophy Banks, it was termed the ‘Heart and Soul’ group, and such groups have now become part of several transition initiatives in different places. These aspects of Transition have been centrally incorporated into the successful ‘Transition Training’, devised by Sophy Banks and Naresh Giangrande, that at the time of writing is taking place around several continents.

[We’re not sure about whether we should name all these people, because where do we stop? It becomes rather a monotonous list perhaps, inevitably with people left out. What about the Laurieston Hall Ecopsychology Gathering, the Schumacher College 3 week course in 2001, and so on. We think that all this stuff is to be found on the website anyway, and there is no need....what do you think?]