Transcript Slide 1

The "Greening" of Counselling:
Partnering with Nature, Bridging
the Disconnect
Ken MacLeod, MTS, RMFT
AAMFT Clinical Member
Student Counselling Services
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, SK, S7N 5E8
[email protected]
June 12, 2007
Ideas, Theories & Concepts
Informing
Econarrative Practices
 From Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism
 Deep Ecology
 Self & Identity
 Narrative Therapy
A Global Mind Shift
All is One . . .
http://www.globalmindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
Wombat Philosophy
All is One: A Paradigm Shift
From Anthropocentrism to Ecocentrism
We have forgotten who we are
We have alienated ourselves from the
unfolding of the cosmos
We have become estranged from the
movements of the earth
We have turned our backs on the cycles of
life.
We have forgotten who we are.
(United Nations Environmental Sabbath Program as found in
Glendinning, 1994, p. 55)
Ecocentrism
 Ecocentrism goes beyond
biocentrism with its fixation on
organisms, for in the ecocentric
view people are inseparable from
the inorganic/organic nature that
encapsulates them. They are
particles and waves, body and
spirit, in the context of Earth’s
ambient energy (Rowe, 1994, p.
106).
Ecocentrism
 The ecocentric argument is grounded in the belief
that compared to the undoubted importance of the
human part, the whole Ecosphere is even more
significant and consequential: more inclusive,
more complex, more integrated, more creative,
more beautiful, more mysterious, and older than
time. The “environment” that anthropocentrism
misperceives as materials designed to be used
exclusively by humans, to serve the needs of
humanity, is in the profoundest sense humanity’s
source and support: its ingenious, inventive lifegiving matrix (Rowe, 1994, pp. 106-107).
Ecocentrism
The two belief systems, the anthropocentric and
the ecocentric, do not so much pose an either/or
choice as a priority choice. Everyone agrees that
we people have our just place in the world and
that as heterotrophic animals we must use
surrounding ecological systems to obtain life’s
energy and materials. Likewise, a consensus is
emerging that the world environment is important;
its beauty, diversity and permanence ought not to
be destroyed, and we degrade it at our peril.
Putting the two together, can we not agree that
people of inestimable value exist within an
Ecosphere of inestimable value (Rowe, 1990, p.
39)?
Ecocentrism
 In the words of Capra (1996), “When the
concept of the human spirit is understood as
the mode of consciousness in which the
individual feels a sense of belonging, of
connectedness to the cosmos as a whole
(and, my addition, “to the Earth in
particular”) it becomes clear that ecological
awareness is spiritual in its deepest
essence” (Rowe, 2000, p. 9).
What are you? What am I? Intersecting cycles of water,
earth, air and fire, that’s what I am, that’s what you are.
Water
blood, lymph, mucus, sweat, tears, inner
oceans tugged by the moon, tides
within and tides without. Streaming
fluids floating our cells, washing and
nourishing through endless riverways
of gut and vein and capillary. Moisture
pouring in and through and out of you,
of me, in the vast poem of the
hydrological cycle. You are that. I am
that.
Earth
matter made from rock and soil. It too is
pulled by the moon as the magma circulates
through the planet heart and roots suck
molecules into biology. Earth pours through
us, replacing each cell in the body every
seven years. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,
we ingest, incorporate and excrete the
earth, are made from the earth. I am that.
You are that.
Air
the gaseous realm, the atmosphere, the
planet’s membrane. The inhale and
the exhale. Breathing out carbon
dioxide to the trees and breathing in
their fresh exudations. Oxygen kissing
each cell awake, atoms dancing in
orderly metabolism, interpenetrating.
That dance of the air cycle, breathing
the universe in and out again, is what
you are, is what I am.
Fire
fire from our sun that fuels all life, drawing up
plants and raising the waters to the sky to
fall again replenishing. The inner furnace of
your metabolism burns with the fire of the
Big Bang that first sent matter-energy
spinning through space and time. And the
same fire as the lightning that flashed into
the primordial soup catalyzing the birth of
organic life.
You were there, I was there, for each cell of
our bodies is descended in an unbroken
chain from that event.
(John Seed and Joanna Macy in Earth Prayers, 1991, p. 130-131)
DEEP ECOLOGY
Deep Ecology is a holistic approach to facing
world problems that brings together thinking,
feeling, spirituality and action. It involves
moving beyond the individualism of Western
culture towards also seeing ourselves as part
of the earth. This leads to a deeper connection
with life, where Ecology is not just seen as
something 'out there', but something we are
part of and have a role to play in.
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/johnston.htm
Why Deep?
The term 'Deep Ecology' was first introduced
by the Norwegian activist and philosopher
Arne Naess in the early 1970's, when
stressing the need to move beyond
superficial responses to the social and
ecological problems we face. He proposed
that we ask 'deeper questions', looking at
the 'why and how' of the way we live and
seeing how this fits with our deeper beliefs,
needs and values. Asking questions like
"How can I live in a way that is good for me,
other people and our planet?" may lead us
to make deep changes in the way we live.
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/johnston.htm
Why Deep?
Deep Ecology can also be seen as part of a much
wider process of questioning of basic assumptions in
our society that is leading to a new way of looking at
science, politics, healthcare, education, spirituality
and many other areas. Because this change in the
way we see things is so wide ranging, it has been
called a new 'worldview'. It tends to emphasise the
relationships between different areas, bringing
together personal and social change, science and
spirituality, economics and ecology. Deep Ecology
applies this new worldview to our relationship with
the earth. In doing this, it challenges deep-seated
assumptions about the way we see ourselves,
moving from just seeing ourselves as 'individuals'
towards also seeing ourselves as part of the earth.
This can increase both our sense of belonging in life
and our tendency to act for life. (
http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/johnston.htm)
You Can’t Go Back.
Now What?
 ‘A human being is part of the whole, called by us
"universe," limited in time and space. He
experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as
something separated from the rest - a kind of
optical delusion of his consciousness. This
delusion is a prison, restricting us to our personal
desires and to affection for a few persons close to
us.
Our task must be to free ourselves from our prison
by widening our circle of compassion to embrace
all humanity and the whole of nature in its beauty’.
(Einstein, A.)
Self & Identity
 We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go
inside to locate the psyche, you examine your feelings
and your dreams, they belong to you. Or it’s
interrelations, interpsyche, between your psyche and
mine. That’s been extended a little bit into family
systems and office groups – but the psyche, the soul,
is still only within and between people. We’re working
on our relationships constantly, and our feelings and
reflections, but look what’s left out of that… What’s left
out is a deteriorating world. So why hasn’t therapy
noticed that? Because psychotherapy is only working
on that “inside” soul. By removing the soul from the
world and not recognizing that the soul is also in the
world, psychotherapy can’t do its job anymore… the
sickness is out there.
James Hillman, We’ve Had a Hundred Years of Psychotherapy and the World’s Getting Worse
An Ecological Sense of Selfhood
 This ecological sense of selfhood combines the
mystical and the pragmatic. Transcending
separateness and fragmentation, in a shift that
Seed calls a “spiritual change,” it generates an
experience of profound interconnectedness with
all life. This has in the past been largely relegated
to the domain of mystics and poets. Now it is, at
the same time, a motivation to action. The shift in
identity serves as ground for effective engagement
with the forces and pathologies that imperil us
(Macy, ed. Plant, 1989, p. 202).
“The Ecological Self”
(as coined by Arne Naess)
 “The ecological self of a person is that with
which this person identifies” and “We may
be in, of and for nature from our very
beginning. Society and human relations are
very important, but our self is richer in its
constitutive relations. These relations are
not only relations we have with humans and
the human community, but with the larger
community of all living beings.” (Seed et al,
20-1) (http://www.rainforestinfo.org.au/deep-eco/johnston.htm)
Unique but not Separate
 We are unique but not separate; we are
connected to each other and to the web of
relationships that constitute our universe.
When one suffers, we all suffer; when the
earth is poisoned, we are all endangered. We
are in relationship not only with our selves,
our families, and our human community but
with that which constitutes us, supports, and
depends on us – the earth, the air, all that is
known, and that which is unknown (Moules,
2000, p. 235).
Narrative Practices
It’s all a question of story. We are in
trouble just now because we do not
have a good story. We are in
between stories. The old story, the
account of how we fit into it, is no
longer effective. Yet we have not
learned the new story (Berry, 1990,
p. 123).
A Different Way of Thinking about
Problems and Identity
Principles and Catch Words:
 Curiosity
 Asking Questions you Don’t Know
the Answers to
 Respectful Collaboration
 Non-blaming
 Non-pathologizing
A Different Way of Thinking about
Problems and Identity
 Transparent
 Therapeutic Conversations taking many
possible directions
 Draws on Narrative Metaphor
 Multi-Storied Lives
 The Problem is the Problem, Separate
from Person
 Location, Location, Location
Narrative: A Storied Therapy
Our lives are ceaselessly intertwined with
narrative, with the stories we tell and hear
told, those we dream or imagine or would
like to tell, all of which are reworked in the
story of our own lives that we narrate to
ourselves in an episodic, sometimes semiconscious, but virtually uninterrupted
monologue. We live immersed in narrative,
recounting and reassessing the meaning of
our past actions, anticipating the outcome of
our future projects, situating ourselves at the
intersection of several stories not yet
completed. (Brooks, 1984, p. 3)
Narrative: A Storied Therapy
 The Narrative Metaphor
 Meaning Making Creations,
Interpreting Beings
 Events
 Linked in Sequence
 Across Time
 According to a Plot
The Language
 Re-authoring

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Externalizing
Preferences, Preferred Ways of Being
Rich Stories
Thin and Thick Stories
Dominant Stories
The Language
Deconstruction
 Alternative Stories
 Maps: Statement of Position Map, ReMembering Map, Re-authouring Map
 Postmodernism
 Post-Structualism
 Social Constructionism

Concepts, Ideas, Theories and
Philosophies
 Concepts of Self and Identity
 Ideas have a History and Context.
 Theories of Postmodernism, PostStructualism and Social
Constructionsim
 Philosophy of Michel Foucault
Postmodernism
“… an era, a cultural movement, a social
condition, a belief system, and a way of
being in and understanding the world.
The end of a belief in one single
worldview, it is “a resistance to single
explanations, a respect for difference
and a celebration of the regional, local
and particular” (Jencks, 1992, p. 11)
(Moules, 2000).
Postmodernism
“Postmodernism basically states that
events occur in the physical world,
and people give meaning to those
events. In this paradigm there is no
objective meaning, and no objective
explanation (Waldegrave, 1993).
Social Constructionism
 The belief that reality is constructed
within social relationships and,
therefore, self is a concept, process,
and activity that occurs between people.
As a result, people constitute each other
(Freedman & Combs, 1996)
( as found in Moules, 2000).
Econarrative?
 Our social and environmental
degradation shows that we
desperately need to create
believable holistic stories, stories
that reconnect us with sensory
global congress.
(Michael Cohn, Reconnecting with Nature)
A New Story
 Tell me the story of the river and the valley and the
streams and woodlands and wetlands, of shellfish and
finfish. A story of where we are and how we got here
and the characters and roles that we play. Tell me a
story, a story that will be my story as well as the story
of everyone and everything about me, the story that
brings us together in a valley community, a story that
brings together the human community with every living
being in the valley, a story that brings us together
under the arc of the great blue sky in the day and the
starry heavens at night . . . (Berry, p. 171).
Reconnecting
 To reclaim is to recall or bring back. I speak of
“reclaiming connection” as recalling the right to
acknowledge connection, meaning, and
community. It is the prerogative, in an era that is
fraught with particularity, to claim a commonality, a
communion, and a sacred and spiritual unity that
ties us to each other as humans and intimately ties
us to a world that is greater than or certainly more
than human (Abram, 1996). It is the privilege to
reconvene and summon a tentative and “largerthan-me” meaning, significance, and connection
about that which is mysterious, sensual, and
unknown. (Moules, 2000, p. 229)
So, what could it look like?
 Ecopsychology
 Ecotherapy
 Econarrative?
Ecopsychology
 Once upon a time, all psychologies were
“ecopsychologies.” Those who sought to heal the
soul took it for granted that human nature is
densely embedded in the world we share with
animal, vegetable, mineral, and all the unseen
powers of the cosmos....It is peculiarly the
psychiatry of modern Western society that has
split the “inner” life from the “outer” world—as if
what was inside of us was not also inside the
universe, something real, consequential, and
inseparable from our study of the natural world.
Theodore Roszak, The Voice of the Earth (1992)
"There is no inner world without the outer
world."
(Thomas Berry)
 . . . the basic challenge of ecologically responsible
psychotherapy is to develop ways to work with the
“purely personal” problems brought by clients so
that they can be seen not only as unique
expressions but also as microcosms of the larger
whole, of what is happening in the world. The
goals of therapy then include not only the ability to
find joy in the world, but also to hear the Earth
speaking in one’s own suffering, to participate in
and contribute to the healing of the planet by
finding one’s niche in the Earth’s living system and
occupying it actively (Conn, eds. Roszak, Gomes,
Kanner, 1995, p. 164).
Ecotherapy
 . . . a missing dimension of most (therapy) theories is
that healthy identity includes a strong sense of being
firmly grounded. This means discovering the reality of
our body-mind-spirit self being deeply, securely rooted
in the biosphere. Such groundedness tends to enliven
inner feelings of security and strength. It also can
serve as a bridge to integrating awareness of the
interconnectedness of all aspects of the self – mind,
body, spirit – and interactive connectedness of these
with the external world of relationships, culture,
society, and nature. Such grounded identity has an
anchored awareness of organic relatedness with one’s
body, with the earth, and with the other living creatures
that share the biosphere with us (Clinebell, 1996, p.
33).
Interconnected
 "We have given up the understanding -dropped it out
of our language and so out of our thought -that we and
our country create one another, depend on one
another, are literally part of one another; that our land
passes in and out of our bodies just as our bodies
pass in and out of our land; that as we and our land
are a part of one another, so all who are living as
neighbors here, human and plant and animal, are part
of one another, and so cannot possibly flourish alone;
that, therefore, our culture must be our response to
our place, our culture and our place are images of
each other and inseparable from each other."
Wendell Berry
The Practice
 To do ecopsychology and ecotherapy, one
of its healing-directed applications, is to
practice art, lore, craft, ethics, philosophy,
and science simultaneously, emphasizing
now one, now another, and often many
together.
Craig Chalquist, MS PhD, Mind and Environment:
Psychological Survey of Perspectives Literal, Wide, and
Deep http://www.terrapsych.com/mindandenvironment.html
Maps for the Journey:
Mapping Narrative Conversations
(White)
 Statement of Position Maps 1 & 2:
Mapping Externalizing Conversations
Mapping Initiatives
 Mapping Re-Authoring Conversations
 Mapping Re-Membering Conversations
 Mapping Outsider Witness Re-tellings
Definitional Ceremony and OutsiderWitness Responses (White)
 Definitional Ceremony
 Outsider-Witness Responses
 Mapping Outsider-Witness Retellings
Mapping Outsider Witness Re-tellings
(White)
Possible to Know
4.
3.
2.
1.
Acknowledging Transport
Embodying Responses
Describing the Image
Identifying the Expression
Time
Known & Familiar
Outsider Witness Questions (White)
 Identifying the Expression
As you listen to this person’s story, which expressions
caught your attention or captured your imagination?
Which one’s struck a chord for you?
 Describing the Image
What images of their life, of his identity, and of the world
more generally, did these expressions evoke? What
did these expressions suggest to you about their
purposes, values, beliefs, hopes, dreams and
commitments?
Outsider Witness Questions (White)
 Embodying Responses
What is it about your own life/work that accounts for why these
expressions caught your attention or struck a chord for you?
Do you have a sense of which aspects of your own experiences
of life resonated with these expressions, and with the images
evoked by these expressions?
 Acknowledging Transport
How have you been moved on account of being present to
witness these expressions of life? Where has this experience
taken you to, that you would not otherwise have arrived at, if
you hadn’t been present as an audience to this conversation?
In what way have you become other than who you were on
account of witnessing these expressions, and on account of
responding to these stories in the way that you have?
Richer Stories of People’s Identities:
Re-Membering Ecostories
Possible to Know
4.
3.
2.
1.
Implications of this Contribution for Nature
Person’s Contribution to Nature
Person’s Identity through Eyes of Nature
Nature’s Contribution to Person’s Life
Time
Known & Familiar
Statement of Position Map 1
4.
3.
2.
1.
Possible to Know
Intentional Understandings of Experience &
Understandings about What is Accorded
Value
Experience of this Development
Problem in Relationship to Nature
Characterisation of Problem
Time
Known & Familiar
Statement of Position Map 2
4.
3.
2.
1.
Possible to Know
Intentional Understandings of Experience &
Understandings about What is Accorded
Value
Experience of this Development
Outcome/Insight in Relationship to
Self/Nature
Characterisation of Unique Outcome/Insight
Time
Known & Familiar
Re-Authoring Conversations (White)
 Re-Authoring Conversations Map
–Landscape of Consciousness
(Identity)
–Landscape of Action
Questions to Consider
(Trudinger, M., Maps of violence, maps of hope: Using Place and maps to explore identity,
gender and violence, The International Journal of Narrative Therapy and Community Work,
2006, No. 3)
• How do individuals and communities relate to the
places they live in?
• How might place be constitutive of identity?
• How might some places be experienced as
enabling different ways of being?
• How does the negotiation of identity in place alter
both places and identities?
• What might happen if we asked questions not just
about people’s identities and relationships with
others over time, but relationships with places over
time?
Questions to Consider
(Trudinger, M)
• How might we be able to listen more carefully for
implicit or explicit references to spaces and places
in our conversations with people, and the
possibilities this may open in our work?
• How might people prefer to relate to the spaces in
their lives? How might they prefer the spaces to be
different?
• How might the meanings of place change over time
for people?
• What places do people find help put them more in
touch with the preferred accounts of their lives?
What places might people experience as being
‘therapeutic’ for them? (Why?)
Questions to Consider
(Trudinger, M)
• What places might be experienced as
calming, generative, renewing, exhilarating,
encouraging of reflection, and so on?
• How might we be able to ‘bring these places
into the therapy room’, as we bring in other
people and characters?
• How might physically changing place (for
example, in moving to a new town or school)
recently happened, and be available to
people’s concerns about these?
Questions for Re-authoring
Conversations
(Trudinger, M)
• Where were you when this development
happened?
• Where were you when you were leading up
to this development …?
• When you want to ‘get some distance’ from
[the problem] is there somewhere that you
physically go? Somewhere that you pop into
for a few moments, somewhere you visit for
an hour or so, somewhere you go on a
holiday to …?
• Are there other places like this where these
kinds of developments have occurred?
Questions For Re-authoring
Conversations
(Trudinger, M)
• Is there a common theme in each of these places?
Is there a reason you specifically go there? Is it
being surrounded by nature, or certain kinds of
people; does the place evoke something special
for you …?
• In your plans in relation to this, is there somewhere
that you have in mind for trying out your next
steps? Why would you choose there?
• How is that you were able to step more into these
other ways at this place? (For example: ‘How is it
that you are able to care for yourself more when
you visit the beach?’)
Questions For Re-authoring
Conversations
(Trudinger, M)
• Is there something about this place itself that
allows you to…?
• Is going to this place to ‘get away from it all’
[or to ‘reflect on life’, or whatever] something
that you had done before, or was this a new
idea?
• Has going there helped with other times in
your life?
Questions For Re-authoring
Conversations
(Trudinger, M)
• What other possibilities for your life become
available to you when you go to this place?
What wishes for your life are you more able
to get in touch with there?
• As you step more into these other ways of
being, are there places you can imagine that
you will spend more time in?
• If this could work for you in other places,
would that be positive or negative, or …?
Questions For Remembering
Conversations
(Trudinger, M)
• What places are special in your life?
• What do these places mean to you?
• How do you relate to yourself (or the
problem in question) differently when you
are at that place?
More Place Questions
(Trudinger, M)
• Where are the places you go to relax?
• Where are the places you go to take care of
yourself?
• If you’re getting stressed and angry, is there
somewhere you go to ‘get away from it all’?
• Why do you go there and not somewhere
else? What’s the appeal of that place? Does
it have a broader meaning for you?
• Do you go there on purpose when you’re
thinking of the other things that might be
different in your life?
More Place Questions
(Trudinger, M)
• How does going there feel?
• How does going there help in your quest to
be someone other than ‘a tough jock’ [or
whatever the naming of the dominant plot
has been]?
• When you’re at this place, how does it have
you thinking about how you might do other
things in your life differently, or other wishes
that you have for your life?
• Does this place remind you of other places
where this happens for you?
Environmental Ethics
"We are a part of the Creation - the living
world - in body and spirit. We belong on this
planet as a biological heritage, and we have
a sacred personal duty to keep it intact and
healthy.“
E.O. Wilson
Reconnect and Nurture
"Nurture your felt love for nature; never deny it. In
our nature conquering society it is an unconquered
vestige of your inherent connection with nature's
ancient, unifying, essence. For eons this essence
has peacefully organized, preserved and
regenerated life relationships in balance. The loss
of our felt love of nature in our daily thinking
produces much of our destructiveness and
imbalance.
Michael J. Cohen
"The natural world is the maternal source of our
being as earthlings and the life-giving
nourishment of our physical, emotional,
aesthetic, moral, and religious existence. The
natural world is the larger sacred community to
which we belong. To be alienated from this
community is to become destitute in all that
makes us human. To damage this community
is to diminish our own existence."
Thomas Berry
The Earth Charter
"Recognize that peace is the wholeness
created by right relationships with
oneself, other persons, other cultures,
other life, Earth, and the larger whole of
which all are a part.”
A Global Mind Shift:
All is One . . .
http://www.globalmindshift.org/memes/wombat.swf
Get it in Gear!
All is One.
Permaculture
A design system that attempts to reconcile human communities
with the ecological imperatives of a living planet. Permaculture
design may be used to restore ecosystems, create sustainable
human habitats and healthy towns, and promote economic
systems that support the care of the Earth. It provides an
ethical and holistic foundation for sustainable culture. The
principles are derived from three basic ethics: care for the
earth; care for people; limit needs and reinvest in the future . . .
Permaculture is a body of knowledge, susceptible to learning and
teaching. But it is also a way of organizing knowledge, a
connecting system that integrates science, art, politics,
anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the diverse
experiences and resources available in any community.
(http://www.permaculture.net/about/definitions.html ).