Ecotherapy

Ecotherapy brings the living world into the work rather than treating it as scenery. What matters is that the natural world is part of the method, not where the session happens to take place — this can be done outdoors, or indoors with natural materials and images to hand.

Sitting face to face can be confronting, particularly if you find eye contact hard or you are approaching something you feel ashamed of. Walking side by side, or holding something while you speak, tends to make the words come more easily. The body settles in the presence of trees, water and open ground, which does a lot of the nervous-system work described under somatic approaches. And the living world lends us its own images — the seasons turning, weather passing through, things rotting down and growing back — which give shape to experiences that resist being said straight out.

A session might be walking and talking, or periods of stillness and paying attention to what you can hear and smell and feel, or working with whatever is to hand — the landscape, the weather, natural materials brought into the room. The pace is slower than conventional talking therapy, and the slowness is the point rather than a side effect.

Working outdoors has real practical limits and I would rather set them out plainly. An outdoor session cannot give you the same guaranteed privacy as a closed room, so we agree beforehand what to do if we are overheard or you meet someone you know. Weather, terrain, getting there and being physically comfortable all need talking through first. Ecotherapy does not suit or appeal to everyone. Saying no to it is an entirely reasonable thing to do.

If this way of working interests you, please ask when you get in touch and I will tell you honestly what is possible and how we might arrange it.