Defining EP, Part 2

by Robert Greenway

(continued from Part 1)
Thanks for all the interest in “defining” –  I think it very important, for a variety of reasons.   Not to “lock in ‘the field’”; not assuming that “nature” needs us to be conceptual or heady; not to provide public credentials (that after all serve a culture with symptoms of serious disjunction); not to push a certain philosophy over another; but simply as an “interim” tool — with which those who in fact have worked out a healthy “human-nature-relationship” can do more than blather incoherently (or eschew all guides and forward references) in service to a kind of naturalistic Boddhisatva vow — that we will not take our exploitative comforts and pleasures [for granted] until all humans and creatures and life can live in alignment with “nature”.

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Defining Ecopsychology, Part 1

by Robert Greenway

There is no common definition of “ecopsychology” –  to many,  in and out of academia,  it has come to mean any or all of the following:   a kind of “pop psychology” or quasi therapy that helps ease fears about the decline of “the natural world”;   just about any kind of environmental-social or environmental-political topic;   gardening, hikes in the wilderness,  fishing –  anything having to do with “humans” and “nature”  (with “nature” usually meaning something separate from humans).  Etc.
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