Diversity in Ecopsychology: A Review by John Scull

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A Review of Peter H. Kahn, Jr., and Patricia H. Hasback. Ecopsychology:  Science, Totems, and the Technological Species, by John Scull, Ph.D.

John’s review begins:

“There is a confusing tangle of words about the several psychological disciplines related to the environment – environmental psychology, ecological psychology, conservation psychology, human ecology.  It is not just confusing for outsiders:  When communicating among themselves, psychologists need to explain what they mean because different writers have used these words in different ways.  These diverse fields all have one common feature; they are in the mainstream of academic social psychology.  They all privilege experiments and other controlled quantitative research over qualitative research and they elevate all kinds of research above anecdotal evidence, clinical experience, opinion, narrative, and philosophy.

Ecopsychology has come from different traditions.  The diverse pioneers in the field arrived at ecopsychology from humanistic and transpersonal psychology, experiential environmental education, scientific ecology, systems thinking, and deep ecology.  As a result, the field has been much more interdisciplinary than the inclusion of  “psychology” in the coined word suggests.”

Download this pdf for the rest …

Books, Reviews Shortlink

Red Path Spiritman & This Is

Two pieces from David Sparenberg, author of Life in the Age of Extinctions (free download), starting with Red Path Spiritman:

native-american4A man stands on open ground.  His arms stretched wide, his chest lifted, his head tossed back.  Facing skyward he hangs by the spider threads of creation.  He hangs by mere light beams of the sun.

Nobody forgets this young man.  Nobody forgets the earth warrior.  He watches over the continent of Turtle Island.

Elders gather to chant and remember.  Women come around making circle, to wail and moan, and to shed tears.  Children stand by, silent in awestruck wonder.

Continue Reading →

Poetry and Prose Shortlink

Gestalt of the Dialogue

by David Sparenberg, author of Life in the Age of Extinctions

We cannot talk about greening
without talking about peace
We cannot talk about peace
without talking about justice
We cannot talk about justice
without addressing injustice
We cannot speak of injustice with integrity
without talking about the problems of injustice
such as race and poverty, exploitation
and so on.

We cannot talk about the problems
without talking about indifference to suffering
We cannot talk about indifference to suffering
without examining the labyrinth of violence
We cannot speak of violence
without talking about hatred
We cannot talk about hatred
without talking about fear
We cannot talk about fear
without addressing the mutuality of vulnerability
and the given condition of relatedness.
Continue Reading →

Poetry and Prose Shortlink

David Abram’s Website for AWE

Alliance for Wild EthicsIf you have not yet seen David Abram’s website for AWE (the Alliance for Wild Ethics),  I promise you will want to explore it. It is absolutely beautiful. You’ll need to have the latest version of Flash Player installed to get the full effect (Chrome has this already built in, so if you are using it as your web browser you’ll have no problem).

Links Shortlink

Introduction to Ecotherapy

from Beth Lapin

Because of its relative newness, many people are not aware of ecotherapy nor do they have an understanding of it. I have recently completed two outreach efforts to broaden the public’s understanding and appreciation of this emerging field. I’d welcome any feedback about either of them, available through the hotlinks below.

Continue Reading →

Articles, Ecotherapy, Interviews, Media, Television Shortlink

Ego & Nature

Another gift from Linda Buzzell-Salzman:

ego and nature

Imagery Shortlink

Tree Marriage

Submitted by Linda Buzzell-Salzman

Tree Marriage
by William Meredith

In Chota Nagpur and Bengal
the betrothed are tied with threads to
mango trees, they marry the trees
as well as one another, and
the two trees marry each other.

Could we do that some time with oaks
or beeches? This gossamer we
hold each other with, this web
of love and habit is not enough.
In mistrust of heavier ties,

I would like tree-siblings for us,
standing together somewhere, two
trees married with us, lightly, their
fingers barely touching in sleep,
our threads invisible but holding.

from Effort at Speech. © Northwestern University Press, 1997

Poetry and Prose Shortlink

Solomon Benatar’s Forward to “Billy Beaver: An Environmental Allegory”

photography by Amy Lenzo

photo by Amy Lenzo

Some years ago Michael Aleksiuk submitted a pdf of his book ‘Billy Beaver: An Environmental Allegory‘ to Gatherings.  Its premise is that the human striving for status is at the psychological roots of environmental degradation. This ‘children’s story’ has been heartily endorsed by academics and scholars worldwide as a breakthrough in understanding. It is still available in the Gatherings Archives of Jan 05 – December 05.

All those years ago Solomon Benatar was invited to write a foreword to ‘Billy Beaver’ and he tracked us down so that we can include his foreword here with the original story; download and read his work here: Billy Beaver Foreword.

Articles, Books Shortlink

New Quote, New Book

“If you are divided from your body, you are also divided from the body of the world which then appears to be other than you or separate from you rather than the living continuum to which you belong”
~ From New Self New World, by Philip Shepherd

The quote comes from Parisian Pierre Goirand, who sends out an always-brilliant weekly quote to his mailing list.

Books, Quotes Shortlink

Recovering the Eco-Unconscious

Desert Flower

Photo by: Amy Lenzo

by Robin E. Gates

Abstract: Western culture has a history of union and subsequent separation from nature. This split between spirit and nature, psyche and soma, intellect and emotion, science, philosophy, and religion, manifests in our individual and collective consciousness creating crises that span the spectrum of human experience, from the psychological to the environmental. Since we have within our unconscious, memories of our being in union with nature, it is a matter of recovering them through what Carl Jung called the individuation process; whereby, a person develops one’s unique individuality from that which has been imposed on him or her from the environment. An expansion of consciousness and recovery of the eco-unconscious is achieved by the confrontation with and integration of unconscious material culminating in coniunctio, or union of the opposites….Read Article

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A Winter Meditation on Pruning…

By Linda Buzzell-Saltzman, previously published in The Huffington Post as “The Zen of Pruning” , 1/16/12.

Winter and early spring are the seasons when many gardeners, orchardists and farmers — fancying themselves surgeons — approach their trees, shrubs and roses with knives, pruning shears and saws in hand, seemingly unaware that these plants are, as the Buddhists would say, sentient beings.

Most pruning is less a conversation between two of nature’s creatures and more an act of ruthless domination under the guise of necessity. Continue Reading →

Articles Shortlink

New Ecopsychology Publications

A new ecopsychoanalysis blog.

And a new ecopsychology book, an anthology of writings from the UK: Vital Signs: Psychological Responses to Ecological Crisis by Mary-Jayne Rust & Nick Totton (Karnac, 2011).

From the Introduction:

“Vital signs’ are, of course, the basic physiological measures of functioning which health practitioners use to assess the gravity of a patient’s predicament. This anthology focuses not so much on our physical predicament, with so many of the Earth’s systems severely stressed and beginning to fail – there are plenty of other places to read about this. Instead we focus on our psychological predicament, as news of the situation slowly penetrates our defences and we struggle as individuals and as a society to find an adequate response.”

Books Shortlink

The Permaculture-Ecotherapy Dialogues

Santa Barbara psychotherapist/ecotherapist Linda Buzzell and John F. Kennedy University ecopsychology professor Dr. Craig Chalquist,  co-editors of Sierra Club Books’ “Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind” — both graduates of the Permaculture Design Course — explore the possibilities though this very preliminary dialogue that will hopefully open a much wider conversation about whether — or even if — the ecologically-based principles of permaculture can address the remediation of devastated psychological and social ecosystems as well as abused and neglected places.

Read Article

Comments are welcome and can be sent to lbuzzell@aol.com

Articles Shortlink

Short Film by Mark Brennan

A short film by Mark Brennan from Nova Scotia about the Acadian Forest from a Deep Ecology Perspective.

Film Shortlink

EarthCare Global TV

EarthCare Global TV has an amazing archive of “Internet TV” titles, ranging from Agriculture to Transportation.

 

 

Television Shortlink