About

Philosophy and Approach

Our approach to "Nature-based" therapy begins with a recognition that Nature is not distinct from Human; that a true honouring of our human nature, in all its growing, healing and self-actualising possibilities means that our selves as persons may be best understood in this light. 

The Ecological Self, then, is a point of view that strives to see the self beyond its individuality, as a meeting place of relationships, with relatives and ancestry, with life experience and upbringing, and with the grand ecology of the more than human.

Approach:

From this viewpoint healing is understood as an entirely natural process. It not foremost a matter of achieving, trying harder, or uprooting or medicating pathologies; 

Rather, healing is a matter of cultivating the health of the ecology in which the self is nested. We may attend directly to the health of the mind, heart and nervous system, and in the bigger picture consider the balance and equilibrium of the ecological world that a person abides within. 

Core Principles of Nature-based Therapy

The Human creature shares the need for enclosure and exposure with all living beings, from a microscopic Protazoa to a giant Redwood, and everything in between. The Protazoa has a membrane which distinguishes the organism from its environment; and its membrane is semi-permeable, which allows for an exchange of nutrients and waste with its environment. The Redwood encloses its roots in the ground and its trunk within its bark, and grows upward into the heights of exposure to the sunlight, wind and rain. Both are vital to the processes of life.

The dynamic of Enclosure and Exposure can be transposed onto the human experience at various levels:

1) Belonging and Adventure: When children are young they depend on their caregiver as their secure base. They explore the exposures of the world in all its novelty and terror, and periodically return to their secure base (enclosed in safety), especially in a fearful experience.

2) Introversion and Extroversion: While these labels are often used to categorize personality types, the underlying reality is that the human creature needs both social and solitude experiences. 

3) Receptive and Active: The animal nervous system runs off two core functions: sensory and motor. 

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