Abstract
The journal Ecopsychology will publish a special issue on Ecotherapy. We seek empirical and theoretical papers—and evocative essays—that address this topic.
We particularly welcome articles that fit within the following two broad areas. One is on how nature can be included into the framing and conduct of the therapeutic relationship to treat established mental health struggles as described by DSM-V and ICD-10, as well as those outside the established diagnostic categories. Illustrative topics include:
Walk therapy Wilderness therapy Equine (and other animal assisted) therapies Ayurvedic therapy Sweat lodge therapy Treatment using indigenous plants and hallucinogens Microbiome therapy Shinrin-yoku (Japanese forest bathing)
The second area is on how therapy can alleviate climate-induced human suffering, and/or enable people to take constructive action to help themselves and their communities in the face of what people increasingly experience as climate trauma. Illustrative topics include:
CBT desensitization and behavior modification for climate anxiety
Psychodynamic approaches to climate-change induced symptoms
Trauma based therapy
Logotherapy
Group therapy
Mindfulness and other spiritually informed interventions
Culturally focused dynamic systems therapy
Solastalgia and Psychoterratic Syndromes
We believe that nature aware therapeutic approaches can fortify the human spirit. This special issue will explore this idea and, by bridging psychotherapy and ecopsychology, strengthen both fields and equip practitioners with tools to help them better care for people and our environment.
Your contribution should be no longer than 5,500 words (excluding references) and submitted no later than September 20, 2022. Please submit using the journal's online submission portal.
For questions, please contact guest editor, Dr. Susan Bodnar: susanbodnarphd@gmail.com