Ecotherapy
Ecotherapy is a unique form of therapy where nature co-facilitates the session. Its therapeutic value comes from tapping into the innate relationship between our bodies and the environment to promote mental, emotional, physical, and spiritual health.
Interventions include exploring other-than-human attachment figures, practicing sensory embodiment, mindfulness exercises, and forest bathing. I treat depression, isolation, trauma, anxiety, mood disregulation, and grief with nature interventions.
One of the foundational principles of Ecotherapy is that every human being belongs to this planet. Recognizing innate belonging can promote reciprocity and mutual respect with nature. These skills signal positive mental well-being and relational integrity.
Additionally, my practice of Ecotherapy promotes racial and environmental justice by actively deconstructing the illusion of separateness from nature. We breathe, eat, drink, and move on this planet, yet we are caught in the rush of modern life. Learning greater connection to the natural world can help you find purpose on this human path we live.
Cville Ecosession Locations
Riverview Park
McIntire Park
Physical Health
Trees alone offer beneficial enzymes that interact with our dopamine. Being inactive forest can lower blood pressure and balance the endocrine system by lowering chortizol leverls. This in turn helps us access improved breathing and regulate our heart rates
Eco therapy provides a unique opportunity to process stressors and develop workable strategies in an environment that naturally is beneficial for your body.*
Sensory Embodiment
Throughout Eco-sessions, I invite clients to attune to smells, sounds, sights, and touch (i.e. barefeet, fingertips, forehead) to help orient their body while processing the content of the session.
This can provide moments of tranquility and increase client's mind-body connection.
Community Well-Being
Lessons learned within nature and the communal draw to nature in local parks all aid in developing a stonger sense of belonging among human and other-than-human communities.
Consistently, nature demonstrates strategies of collaboration. Deeping your relationship with the co-existence of plant and animal increases your sense of belonging to a larger planetary whole.
Mindfulness
Trauma triggers the past
Practicing mindfulness in a nature setting helps sharpen the minds ability to see things as they truly are in the present moment. This is a huge asset to navigating relationships and fine tuning the skill of curiosity.
Moreover, we live in the modern lifestyle full of evaluative commentary! Everything around the us we are trained to judge as good or bad. Ecotherapy helps shape those impulses that keep us from fully experiencing toward the art of noticing and accepting things as part of an ongoing process.*
Seasonal/Weather Attunement
We are environmental sensory creatures. We can not escape the impact of seasonal changes and the weather. Take Seasonal Affective Disorder for example, our bodies shift during the fall and winter seasons where there is less sun light throughout the day.
Ecotherapy can help you form a deeper and more appreciative relationship with the colder seasons. This season of death, darkness, and contemplation is an important time for rejuvenation and contemplation, preparing for the warmer seasons ahead.*
Overall Mental Health Improvement
Exposure to the brilliance and wonder of nature and having accessibility to stillness can increase motivation, clarity, creativity, calm, and a feeling of being grounded.
Subsequently, ecotherapy can decrease feelings of isolation, depression, low affect, stress, and anxiety.*
*With Nature in Mind: The Ecotherapy Manual for Mental Health Professionals, by Andy McGeeney, London, Jessica Kingsley, 2016
