presents…

Identity, Coping And Thriving In An Ecological Age

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In this exclusive and timely weekend workshop and film premiere, Dr. Thomas Doherty, a specialist in the psychology of human-nature relationship and environmental issues, will lead participants in a journey of personal discovery and restoration within the beautiful Sundance Resort and the Wasatch Range.

Dr. Doherty—called by The New York Times “the most prominent American advocate of a growing discipline of ecopsychology” — will weave insights from neuroscience, environmental psychology, and mind-body health to create a model of personal sustainability.

Dr. Doherty’s Complete Bio on Explore Green

Participants are invited to the Sundance premiere of “Play Again” an award-winning documentary by Meg Merrill and Tonje Hessen Schei.

Click here to view the Play Again trailer

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 3

7:30 PM: The Promise of Ecopsychology

This 90-minute talk will discuss the psychology of environmental issues and human-nature relationships, with a focus on how people develop their beliefs and behaviors regarding the natural environment and ways to cope with stressful events like the current Gulf oil spill.

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 4

9:00 AM: Nature-Based Stress Reduction

This 2-hour workshop will provide hands-on experience of stress management techniques and mindfulness meditation in natural settings, with a focus on developing motivation and peace of mind regarding the current environmental crisis. The workshop will include an indoor orientation and non-strenuous outdoor activities.

1:00 PM: Positive Psychology and the Environment

In this 2-hour outdoor workshop participants will nurture themselves and celebrate their connections to nature. Dr. Doherty will highlight topics such as the positive and inspiring emotions and experiences people experience in beautiful natural settings, the history of peoples’ sense of place, and the possibility of an expanded “ecological self.”

8:00 PM: Sundance Premiere of “Play Again” with commentary by the film’s producer, Meg Merrill

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 5

11:00 AM: Grounded Action

This 90 Minute workshop is the capstone to our weekend. Participants will identify useful personal sustainability practices, and goals and strategies for effective environmental engagement that make sense in the context of their lives.

TO ENROLL:

$250 per person
Students: $100.
for all weekend activities and film premiere.

Sundance Resort will provide a special
discounted room rate for the weekend.

Call 1-801-223-4006 and ask for Mara Gabis
to book your reservation.

About Sundance Resort: Nestled at the base of Utah’s 12,000-foot Mt. Timpanogos, Sundance is a 6,000-acre community destination resort, dedicated to maintaining the balance of art, nature and community. Created by Robert Redford, Sundance is a haven for discovery and inspiration that offers diverse mountain recreation experiences year round. Only an hour’s drive from Salt Lake City and 45 minutes from Park City, Sundance is the resort you’ve dreamed about. Sundance features 95 rustically elegant mountain cottages and 10 mountain homes that echo the simplicity of the natural setting. Award-winning dining, a Native American-inspired spa, horseback riding, mountain biking and hiking and an Art Shack that features classes in painting, pottery and jewelry making make Sundance the perfect mountain getaway.

To visit the Sundance website, CLICK HERE

Interested in sustainability issues in Washington County? The PSWCC convenes the Sustainability Network of Washington County. This public forum for sustainability information-sharing and support serves professionals in business, government, and nonprofit in the county. Quarterly meetings are open to all; agendas are planned and organized by Network members.

Our next Sustainability Network meeting will be on July 28th.  Dr. Thomas Joseph Doherty will talk about ecopsychology, which reveals how emotional and mental health is dependent on sustainability and one’s relationship with nature.  Dr. Doherty, featured recently in the NYTimes,  will describe the benefits of green spaces for stress reduction and productivity, diverse ways people understand their connections to the natural world, and how to cope with issues like climate change and the recent Gulf Oil Disaster.  How can an ecopsychology perspective can foster motivation and resilience and inform the best practices of sustainability professionals?

Wednesday, July 28
3:00-4:30pm

Tualatin Valley Water District Headquarters

1850 Southwest 170th Avenue Beaverton, OR 97006-4211  Google Maps

(503) 642-1511

Please RSVP to the PSWCC coordinator

Thomas in Profil

“ We want to explore how people experience nature, so that they cultivate

an intact emotional connection to nature and act responsibly in it”

Thomas Doherty was featured in the Austrian & Swiss Press in:

• SonntagsZeitung February 2010

• Süddeutsche March 2010

• Profil April 2010

ABOUT PLAY AGAIN

Still from Play Again

One generation from now most people in the U.S. will have spent more time in the virtual world than in nature. New media technologies have improved our lives in countless ways. Information now appears with a click. Overseas friends are part of our daily lives. And even grandma loves Wii.

But what are we missing when we are behind screens? And how does this impact our children’s well being, our society and the very future of our planet?

At a time when children play more behind screens than outside, PLAY AGAIN explores the changing balance between the virtual and natural worlds. Is our connection to nature disappearing down the digital rabbit hole?

This documentary follows six teenagers who, like the “average American child,” spend five to fifteen hours a day behind screens. PLAY AGAIN unplugs these teens and takes them on their first wilderness adventure – no electricity, no cell phone coverage, no virtual reality.

Through the voices of children and leading experts like Richard Louv, Juliet Schor, Bill McKibben, Susan Linn, Diane Levin, Nancy Carlsson-Paige, Charles Jordan, Gary Small and David Suzuki, PLAY AGAIN looks at how the imbalance between the virtual and natural worlds impacts our children’s well being, our society and the very future of our planet.

Ground Productions is now getting ready to release PLAY AGAIN, a documentary that investigates the consequences of a childhood removed from nature.

PLAY AGAIN offers solutions and encourages action for a sustainable future.

See article below as published originally HERE.

This Side of Paradise

Discovering Why the Human Mind Needs Nature

By Eric Jaffe

Today, Central Park seems as essential to Manhattan as the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, or Woody Allen. But when the street grid for the island was first mapped out in 1811, no plans were made for the 843-acre green sanctuary at its center. The commissioners in charge of designing the city set aside remarkably few parcels of parkland. They didn’t think the residents would need it. After all, they reasoned, the Hudson and East rivers that flank Manhattan render the island “in regard to health and pleasure … peculiarly felicitous.”

A few brave souls — we’ll call them “brave,” though other descriptors come to mind — find recreation in these waters today. The rest of us are fortunate that the city reconsidered, and that the man who designed Central Park had an understanding, far ahead of his time, of nature’s psychological impact. “It is a scientific fact,” wrote Frederick Law Olmsted in 1865, seven years after his plan for the park was chosen, “that the occasional contemplation of natural scenes of an impressive character … is favorable to the health and vigor of men” (Hartig, 2007).

As awareness of humanity’s relationship with the environment has increased in the past few decades — buoyed of late by the larger popular concern about climate change — so has empirical evidence for nature’s psychological benefits. Back in 1865, Olmsted thought exposure to natural environments would prevent a “softening of the brain,” “irascibility,” and “melancholy.” Nearly 150 years later, scientists now know that nature has a remarkable ability to restore attention, that it soothes aggression, and that it may even ease mild depression.

Reinvigorating the Brain through A.R.T.
The most significant understanding of nature’s salutary effect on the human mind has come through studies of attention. The foundation of this work is the attention restoration theory, or A.R.T., set forth by APS Fellow Stephen Kaplan of the University of Michigan. The theory originated in the 1980s, says Kaplan, when he, APS Fellow Rachel Kaplan, and some of their students noticed that people had an astounding preference for scenes depicting natural environments. Kaplan and his collaborators soon discovered there was much more to nature than just a pretty face — they found that exposure to these scenes had a profound restorative effect on the brain’s ability to focus.

The tenets of A.R.T were established in a 1995 paper by Kaplan. Briefly put, a person can engage in two types of attention: involuntary and voluntary. Involuntary attention is a rather effortless form of engagement with the world. Voluntary (or directed) attention, in contrast, requires a good deal of focus and energy — it plays a central role in problem solving, for instance — and is therefore susceptible to fatigue. Voluntary attention can be restored through sleep, but it can also be restored during waking hours when a person’s involuntary attention becomes highly engaged, essentially giving direct attention a breather. Kaplan and his collaborators found that nature is especially conducive to our involuntary engagement.

Nature’s ability to restore human attention has since been supported by a wide range of psychological studies. In a study coauthored by Kaplan and led by Marc Berman, for instance, the researchers compared the restorative effects of natural environments with those of the city (Berman,  Jonides, & Kaplan, 2008). In one trial, 38 study participants were given the “backwards digit-span task” — an established test of voluntary attention. The participants then performed a task that fatigued their voluntary attention and were randomly assigned to walk through either downtown Ann Arbor or the city’s arboretum, a substantial haven of trees and wide lawns. Afterwards, the participants took the backwards digit-span task again. Sure enough, the scores were significantly higher after the walks through the arboretum, as the researchers reported in Psychological Science.

“The way I think of it is that our ancestors evolved in a nature-filled environment,” says Kaplan. “[Such places] should feel more comfortable, more relaxed, more like home. It’s not a big leap between that and being more competent, less distracted.” In the January 2010 issue of Perspectives on Psychological Science, Kaplan and Berman summarize 13 of the most influential A.R.T.-related papers (Kaplan & Berman, 2010). The findings (some of which will be discussed below in more detail) show nature’s impact on a wide variety of cognitive activity, from dampening road rage to boosting the spirits and attentional capacities of cancer patients. The authors also explain why nature does a better job restoring directed attention than another stimulus that might seem suited to distracting the mind: television.

Rather than lightening the load on direct attention, television actively captures it in an attempt to prevent the viewer from changing the channel (Mander, 1977). As a result, Kaplan and Berman report, researchers have found a direct correlation between the amount of time someone spends in front of the television and that person’s irritability. In the short-term, TV shows provide an escape from everyday trials, but over the long-term such escapism prevents the mind from engaging in much-needed reflection.

“The fascination that seems to be important in the recovery of attention is nothing like what happens on television,” Kaplan says. “Since nature is not only fascinating in this soft and gentle way but is also pleasurable, that means you can more effectively think about things that are not comfortable.”

Positive Pockets of Green
A logical extension of attention restoration theory is that people deprived of nature will display behaviors caused by weary minds. Shortly after his influential paper on A.R.T. appeared in 1995, two of Kaplan’s disciples decided to test this conclusion. The hypothesis laid out by Frances Kuo and William Sullivan of the University of Illinois was a marvel of logic and sequence: If fatigued attention is related to irritability, and irritability leads to aggression, then perhaps people deprived of nature’s restorative qualities would be overly aggressive (Kuo & Sullivan, 2001).

Kuo and Sullivan tested their premise on 145 female residents of a public housing complex in urban Chicago. The complex provided natural control and study groups: Some residents lived in buildings that overlooked “pockets of green,” while others had a view of only bleak concrete. The researchers reported significantly lower levels of aggression and violence in residents with apartments near nature than in those who looked onto barren lands. When handling disputes with their partners, women in the nature group used fewer “psychologically aggressive conflict tactics” and fewer “mildly violent conflict tactics” than those whose randomly assigned housing unit was denied exposure to nature.

Aggressiveness has been linked to impulsivity, so it’s not surprising that in a contemporaneous study, Kuo, Sullivan, and Illinois colleague Andrea Taylor found a relationship between exposure to nature and self-control (Taylor, Kuo, & Sullivan, 2002). In studying 169 girls living in the same housing complex, the researchers found that those with greener views performed better than those deprived of nature on several tasks related to discipline. The former group scored higher on tests of concentration, inhibited impulsivity, and ability to delay gratification.

“Those data are astounding,” says Kaplan of the series of public housing studies performed by Kuo and Sullivan. “That’s a miserable environment, and for [nature] to make a difference in it, that was awesome.”

The findings on aggression and self-discipline appear to transfer out of the home and onto the road. In a 1998 paper, a group of Texas A&M researchers led by Russ Parsons compared the physiological responses of subjects who watched a video of driving through nature with those who watched a drive through more built-up environments (Parsons et al., 1998). Not only did the nature-road group display lower levels of stress, they also recovered more quickly from the stress they did experience.

A related study of road rage tested the ability of subjects to tolerate frustration in various roadside settings (Cackowski & Nasar, 2003). Subjects watched one of three driving videos — one with dense roadside vegetation, one with sparse roadside vegetation, and one mixed — then were asked to solve an unsolvable anagram. The task was designed to enhance frustration, and indeed, subjects whose road trip had taken them through dense vegetation worked on the aggravating task for roughly 90 seconds longer than those in the other groups.

Virtual Nature
The recognition of nature’s psychological value has informed broader discussions on public health and even inspired practical applications. Building on studies showing the psychosomatic benefits of green space, a U.K. research duo reported that populations living near natural environments had less income-related health inequality than groups living away from green space — prompting calls for greener infrastructure and community planning (Mitchell & Popham, 2008). The design of Sacred Heart Medical Center at RiverBend, an Oregon hospital rebuilt in 2008, was informed by a now-classic paper that appeared in Science in 1984: Researcher Roger Ulrich found that patients whose hospital window overlooked nature recorded shorter postoperative stays, required less potent pain medication, and evaluated their nurses more positively after gall bladder surgery than patients who looked onto a brick wall (Ulrich, 1984).

The heightened awareness of nature’s health benefits is tempered by threats to the environment posed by modernity — from the clearance of green space for buildings to the destruction caused by global climate change. To see how such changes might affect future well-being, several psychologists have begun to study whether technology can salvage some of nature’s healthful properties. Three researchers from the University of Washington, led by Peter Kahn Jr., review some of this work in Current Directions in Psychological Science (Kahn, Severson, & Ruckert, 2009).

One of the outlined studies, led by Kahn, compared three types of nature interactions available in a modern office. Kahn and his coauthors conducted tests on three groups of 30: In one group, subjects sat near a glass window that overlooked a nature scene; in another, they viewed a similar scene on a high-definition plasma television; and in a third, they sat near an empty wall. The researchers measured heart-rates to gauge how quickly subjects in each setting recovered from stressors.

Predictably, Kahn and his colleagues found the glass window to be significantly more restorative than the blank wall (Kahn et al., 2008). When the researchers compared the results of subjects in the plasma and blank wall groups, however, they found no significant differences in recovery to stress. This came as something of a surprise. In a previous field study involving Kahn and led by Batya Friedman, plasma screens depicting a natural scene were installed on walls in real-life offices, and workers asked about the experience over a 16-week period reported higher well-being, cognitive functioning, and connection to the environment.

When the two studies are considered together, “the plasma nature window appears better than no nature but not as good as actual nature,” Kahn and his coauthors concluded in Current Directions. Humans will “adapt to the loss of actual nature,” they continued, but in doing so they’ll suffer “psychological costs.”

This conclusion was recently supported in a study led by F. Stephan Mayer, a professor of psychology at Oberlin College, on whether exposure to nature aided the ability to reflect on life’s troubles (Mayer, Frantz, Bruehlman-Senecal, & Dolliver, 2009). Mayer and his colleagues asked subjects to consider a relatively minor problem in their lives, then split them into one of several groups. Over the course of three separate tests, some subjects reflected on their “loose end” while strolling through either natural or urban settings, and others did so while viewing videos of these settings.

The researchers concluded that exposure to nature increased a subject’s ability to resolve a minor personal problem, but that actual nature aided this resolution more than virtual nature.

“It’s not as if you can replace actual nature with virtual nature,” says Mayer, who interprets the results to mean that people have an innate kinship to the natural world.  “At the same time, it does seem as if virtual nature can have benefits. Some of those benefits could be very useful, in terms of people who are hospitalized — if they’re not able to be outside, they could benefit from exposure to virtual nature.”

From Social Movement to Science
The type of work done by Mayer and Kahn falls at least partially under the umbrella of ecopsychology. Largely embraced by therapists, ecopsychology has been considered more of a social movement or worldview than a scientific discipline. But a so-called “second-generation” of ecopsychologists have emerged with a desire to ground the movement’s theories in an empirical foundation.

“As I see it, it seems as if ecopsychology had clinical aspects to it initially, maybe even to some extent a philosophical aspect,” says Mayer, who runs the Ecopsychology Research Project at Oberlin. “Then you have people coming out of a more social psychology tradition with a strong empirical basis, trying to take these general ideas and test them in a more systematic way.”

This progression is apparent in a forthcoming book coedited by Kahn and Patricia Hasbach, a clinical therapist in Oregon. The volume’s title, Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species, was chosen as a deliberate announcement of ecopsychology’s empirical “re-visioning,” says Hasbach. “In sandwiching the word totems” — a reference to ecopsychology’s symbolic, experiential roots — “between science and technological species,” she says, “we’re embracing … the recognition of the place of science for furthering the field.”

Thomas Doherty, a clinical psychologist in Portland, Oregon, who co-teaches an ecotherapy class with Hasbach at Lewis & Clark University, seconds ecopsychology’s push to embrace empirical methods. Editor of the year-old, peer-reviewed journal, Ecopsychology, Doherty says his goal with the publication is to “move away from the stereotype” of ecopsychology being a non-scientific endeavor. In the lead editorial of the inaugural issue, he wrote that the new generation of ecopsychology “recognizes that tending data sets and tending souls are not mutually exclusive” (Doherty, 2009).

Doherty would like to see more controlled studies on ecotherapy’s efficacy. “I’m primarily a clinician,” he says, “but I can’t function without research.” To date, such studies have been limited. The most promising was released in 2007 by Mind, a mental health organization in England that commissioned researchers at the University of Essex to study the therapeutic influence of “green exercise” on people suffering from mild depression. The researchers found that activities like nature strolls and gardening projects benefited several aspects of well-being more than did exercise in a shopping mall (Mind, 2007). In other words, a walk in the park does a body good — just as Olmsted said.

As a model of empirical rigor, the report left room for improvement — the subjects of one study were members of Mind — but as a symbol of ecopsychology’s maturation, it reflected a move toward greener pastures. “In some ways, because of ecopsychology’s counter-culture origins, it lost some traction as the world moved on to embrace scientific inquiry,” says Hasbach, “Admittedly, some things often discussed in ecopsychology are very hard to measure. We’re trying to get more creative in how to do that.” ♦

References

Berman, M.G., Jonides, J., & Kaplan, S. (2008). The cognitive benefits of interacting with nature. Psychological Science, 19, 1207-1212.

Cackowski, J.M. & Nasar, J.L. (2003). The restorative effects of roadside vegetation. Environment and Behavior, 35, 736-751.

Doherty, T.J. (2009). A peer reviewed journal for ecopsychology. Ecopsychology, 1, 1-7.

Hartig, T. (2007). Three steps to understanding restorative environments as health resources. In C. Ward-Thompson & P. Travlou (Eds.), Open space: People space (p. 165) New York: Taylor and Francis.

Kahn, P. H., Jr., Friedman, B., Gill, B., Severson, R.L., Freier, N.G., Feldman, E.N. (2008). A plasma display window?  The shifting baseline problem in a technologically-mediated natural world. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 28, 192-199.

Kahn, P.H., Jr., Severson, R.L., & Ruckert, J.H. (2009).The human relation with nature and technological nature. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 37-42.

Kaplan, S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182.

Kaplan, S., & Berman, M.G. (2010). Directed attention as a common resource for executive functioning and self-regulation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 5, 43-57.

Kuo, F.E., & Sullivan, W.C. (2001). Aggression and violence in the inner city: Effects of environment via mental fatigue. Environment and Behavior, 33, 543-571.

Mander, J. (1977). Four arguments for the elimination of television. New York: Harper Collins.

Mayer, F.S., Frantz, C.M., Bruehlman-Senecal, E., & Dolliver, K. (2009). Why is nature beneficial? The role of connectedness to nature. Environment and Behavior, 41, 607-643.

Mind. (2007, May). Ecotherapy: The green agenda for mental health. London: Author.

Mitchell, R., & Popham, F. (2008). Effect of exposure to natural environment on health inequalities: An observational population study. Lancet, 372, 1655-1660.

Parsons R., Tassinary, L.G., Ulrich, R.S., Hebl, M.R., & Grossman-Alexander, M. (1998). The view from the road: Implications for stress recovery and immunization. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 18, 113-139.

Taylor, A.F., Kuo, F.E., & Sullivan, W.C. (2002). Views of nature and self-discipline: Evidence from inner city children. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 22, 49-63.

Ulrich, R.S. (1984). View through a window may influence recovery from surgery. Science, 224, 420-421.

See article below as published originally HERE.

Greening our minds

How nature nurtures the brain

By Larry Gabriel

Last week’s sunshine and warmth had me out raking and picking up the yard in anticipation of getting my garden growing. I even started some seeds germinating indoors and wondered if it was too early to put lettuce seeds in the ground. Lettuce does well in cooler weather and is one of the first things to come up each spring.

It feels good to get out and do these things after being cooped up inside for the winter. As I walked around the neighborhood with my dog, I ran into a few others who were preparing their yards or flower beds for the coming season. Everyone was smiling, beaming as they went about their work, obviously feeling good.

That’s one of the great things about gardening, it makes you feel good. There’s something about connecting with nature and nurturing life that brings it out. The Detroit Food Justice Task Force, a group that promotes urban agriculture, believes that too. The organization’s list of shared basic values includes the concept of Earth connection, which stems from the belief that there is a “spiritual, comforting and even healing component as people work with soil in an outdoor environment.”

That’s a pretty lofty idea; however, it is in harmony with the relatively new and growing science of ecopsychology. Ecopsychology is based on the idea that there is a deeply bonded and reciprocal relationship between humans and nature. The Earth-connection value of the DFJTF taps into part of ecopsychology’s thrust.

“Community gardens are beneficial in terms of getting people to interact in positive ways,” says Marc Berman, a researcher in cognitive psychology and industrial engineering at the University of Michigan. “Our research shows interacting with nature is good for cognitive functioning, and in growing your own food you might get some healthy produce out of it. It’s hard to think of a downside. It’s vital, though, to get the people actually living in a community involved in the developmental stages. Residents need to have ownership. If you get people interested and involved it should lead to all the those benefits mentioned.”

Berman ran an experiment in which a group of subjects took a three-mile walk in the Ann Arbor Nichols Arboretum, a wooded area with gardens and trails. He had another group walk along a busy street. Subsequent testing showed that the group that took the walk in the Arb performed better on tests of mental focus and memory than the group that walked along the city street. Soft fascinations (rustling leaves, babbling brooks) found in nature increase focus and memory, while the harsh stimuli (car horns, billboards) of an urban setting cause a cognitive overload. That may seem obvious to some, but as Detroiters reshape and refocus the city, scientific data will help convince politicians and power brokers just how important green spaces are.

It’s obvious that the city plans green spaces as a way of developing much of the abundant vacant lots and abandoned buildings. Mayor Dave Bing mentioned it several times in his State of the City address. Bing never mentioned urban agriculture as part of that plan, although City Council is considering it in rewriting zoning laws for Detroit. And various plans offered by independent groups all see gardening and agriculture as vital parts of a new Detroit. It’s all good according to ecopsychology, although there are different strata of goodness between looking out your window at trees and getting your hands dirty in the garden.

So if we’re all on the same page here, why do we need the science to prove the importance of greening? Because it will give a firm basis to thinking about natural settings and gardens as part of a permanent solution rather than a placeholder until something else comes along. We don’t need to again give away our greenery for industrial development.

And maybe we should have our police officers out there with hoes and rakes. Berman points to research showing that environment matters in crime fighting. Studies in the Netherlands and in Lowell, Mass., tested what is called the Broken Window Theory, which has become part of the crime-fighting strategy in New York and other cities. The theory holds that people in an orderly environment will behave in an orderly manner, and that a disorderly environment promotes disorderly behavior. The two studies in high-crime areas showed that an increase in police presence was less effective in decreasing crime than cleaning up debris and fixing broken-down buildings. If you added gardening too, these experts predict that it would rise to another level.

“In gardening, the potential benefits include self-confidence and self-efficacy. Gardening is restorative and has some of same benefits as going into a wilderness area,” says Dr. Thomas Doherty, an ecopsychologist at the Sustainable Self clinic in Portland, Ore. “It’s a reflexive, meditative activity.”

That beats where your thinking goes when dodging cars, listening to horns blare, taking in billboards, stepping on broken glass, etc.

Dr. Janet Swim, a professor of psychology at Pennsylvania State University, adds: “There is a sense of efficacy, the ability to do something that you can’t do elsewhere. You develop a sense of pride in what you’re doing. It’s an alternative to the materialistic world, an attachment to other sources of well-being. The more time people spend in natural setting, the less materialistic they are.”

Oops, that’s a slip. If gardening makes people less materialistic it’ll be harder to get the bigwigs behind that. Our economic drivers depend on selling more and more stuff to people — stuff you probably don’t need and probably can’t use while hoeing a row of greens. But there are plenty of other benefits to help bring folks around. The website of the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory at the University of Illinois is full of such data (lhhl.illinois.edu). A sample of recent findings touted there includes: Green activities reduce ADHD symptoms; the right residential landscaping can discourage crime; green residential landscaping strengthens communities, and, my favorite, adding trees near residences can reduce domestic violence. LHHL’s Capacity to Learn study, which examines the effect of schoolyard nature on children’s learning and academic achievement, might be useful as Detroit Public Schools retools for the future.

Ecopsychology’s concerns are far wider than just the effect of gardening and nature on your mental well-being. And Berman cautions that not everyone responds in the same way to any one stimulus. The field of study is also about complex systems and how humans fit in as opposed to standing outside and manipulating nature. But there is plenty of food for thought just in looking at how we can help heal hurting individuals through some rather simple means, and add to some bigger solutions for the city.

In the meantime, we all can grow a little something in the yard or in a planter, and look out for our own mental balance. I’ve already eaten chives and kale that that survived the cold weather — although parsley, which usually makes it through winter, doesn’t seem to have made it this year. It felt really good to have fresh stuff from the garden already. And it always feels good while fixing dinner to go out in the yard and harvest something rather than jumping in the car and driving to the store to pay for something shipped from hundreds or thousands of miles away. You can’t do it all at once, but a few steps to the yard are giant steps in the right direction.

R.Bruer Company

As founder Rich Bruer notes, the Sustainable Branding Collaborative tears down the walls between operational management, branding, marketing, organizational development and sustainability practices. This unique multi-discipline approach brings sustainable brands to life through:

• careful research
• smart brand design strategies
• skilled marketing and communications
• expert sustainability guidance and planning
• unique “living the brand” trainings

See content below as published originally: Overview: Sustainable Branding Collaborative

See article below as published originally HERE.

Going Green Without the Guilt

How to conquer eco-guilt while reaching your green potential

:: By Polly Campbell

The guilt gripped me the moment I threw the plastic bottle into the garbage can, and it got worse when I watched my friend fish the bottle out and toss it in the recycling bin located 20 feet down the airport concourse.

It isn’t a new feeling — this eco-guilt — the emotion that rises in me when I feel like I haven’t done enough to save the planet. It happened again the other night when the waiter packed my leftovers in a Styrofoam box instead of paper. And, it surfaces when I use a paper towel instead of pulling out the microfiber rag.

Usually, I’m a pretty good recycler. We conserve energy. Limit our waste. But when I think about all that needs to be done — all that I could do — to develop more sustainable living practices, I do feel overwhelmed and guilty. And I’m not alone.

More people are feeling sad, bad, burdened, guilty, frustrated and even scared when it comes to their efforts to preserve, protect and honor the environment, says Leslie Garrett, author of The Virtuous Consumer: Your Essential Shopping Guide to a Better, Kinder, Healthier World and a speaker, columnist and blogger at Gaiam and www.virtuousconsumer.com.

Stages of eco-emotion

The range of emotions people experience when considering their impact on the environment is not unlike the stages of grief as described by psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross in 1969, Garrett says.

It often starts with denial. We begin by believing the environmental issues can’t be as bad as the media portrays them. Later we feel shock, the “Oh-my-gosh-this-is-real-why-aren’t-we-doing more” stage, followed by despair that we can never do enough to make a difference.

“This is when you need to get a certain perspective and realize you cannot control everything, otherwise you’ll just be paralyzed,” Garrett says. “Just control what you can.”

Once we begin to acknowledge our own power and realize that we can make a difference, we move into acceptance. This is a healthier, happier, more productive stage.

Coping with guilt

Ultimately, though, all this emotion is a positive thing, says psychologist Thomas Joseph Doherty, who teaches at Lewis and Clark College and who specializes in helping clients with ecological and socially conscious values. It’s a reminder that we do care about the environment.

The guilt — the pain we feel — evolves out of the connection we have to the natural world, Doherty says. And by recognizing our relationship to the natural world, we’re more likely to nurture both the environment and ourselves.

Instead of feeling guilty, Doherty suggests giving yourself a break. Notice the things you are doing to help, and celebrate the connection you have to the natural world. Act with gentleness and compassion toward yourself and all living things.

“It makes no sense to run ourselves down and then think we can care for the earth,” Doherty says. “We are not separate from nature; we are part of the ecosystem. Caring for that environment means caring for yourself.”

Renewing your connection

When you shift your focus from what you’re doing wrong to the positive difference you are making, you’ll reconnect with the natural world in a more positive way.

Connecting with the environment doesn’t mean you need to pull on a backpack and head for the hills. It can be as simple as watching a sunrise, looking out the window at the flowers in your garden or taking a short stroll in a park during your lunch break, Doherty says.

Even just a few minutes outdoors will leave you feeling better. Numerous studies show that a connection to nature eases stress and promotes well-being. It also fosters mindful awareness, which contributes to a more earth-friendly lifestyle.

“When people are more conscious, they are more aware of their responsibility and more empowered because they realize they can make a difference with many individual acts,” says Doherty.

Sustainable baby steps

When you’re inspired to adopt some new sustainable living practices, go slow, say Doherty and Garrett. Too often people feel like they must make big changes overnight. They end up being overwhelmed or burned out. Often, they feel deprived.

Sustainability isn’t about deprivation, Doherty says. It’s not about giving up something you love, or living with less. Living an environmentally responsible life is really about simplifying, and that often breeds greater levels of satisfaction and happiness, he adds.

One of the first steps toward living a more sustainable life starts with your vote, Garrett says. Our leaders impact everything from fuel emission standards to bike paths and parks. By electing people who are pro-environment, you will make a difference, she says.

Next, make gradual changes in your household. Many things, such as switching from electric power to wind or replacing toxic cleaners with vinegar and water, mean little change in your day-to-day operations — you’ll still have heat if you switch to wind power, for example — but the environmental benefits are profound.

Doherty and Garrett also offer these other suggestions:

• Pack lunches in reusable containers.
• Walk or ride your bike more often.
• Buy secondhand, organic or natural-fiber and fair trade products that are earth friendly and socially responsible. Gaiam’s Live Green and Shop sections offer more information.

Check out the Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy site www.eere.energy.gov for information about energy-saving programs, tax credits and other resources.

Finally, Doherty says, celebrate the changes you’ve already made and your growing connection to the planet.

“It’s really just a matter of making choices,” Garrett says, “of either starting a compost pile or throwing the banana peel in the garbage; of buying the locally grown apples at a farmers’ market or buying apples from South America in the grocery store. Don’t beat yourself up about it. If you don’t do well one day, just do better the next time.”

In an era when concerns about the health of the natural world spur grand global events, like last year’s Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, some psychologists are helping bring ecological anxieties into perspective for average people.

Ecopsychology is a contemporary movement toward recognizing a connection between mental health and the natural environment. Ecopsychologists are discovering the benefits of connecting people to nature to treat depression, stress, and addictions.

Lewis & Clark Graduate School of Education and Counseling is one of only a handful of colleges and universities offering coursework in ecopsychology. Led by Counseling Psychology Instructor Thomas Doherty, Lewis & Clark’s ecopsychology studies area offers students the opportunity to focus on the relationship between mental health and environmental issues.

Doherty discusses the burgeoning discipline in this recent New York Times Sunday Magazine feature: “Is There an Ecological Unconscious?” The article calls Doherty “the most prominent American advocate” for ecopsychology and explores Doherty’s leadership in the growing field.

Learn more about ecopsychology studies at Lewis & Clark in this video, featuring Doherty and his students.

In an interview in the December issue of Alternative and Complementary Therapies, Doherty talks about some of the ways ecopsychologists differ from other therapists and explains the need for ecopsychology in the contemporary world.

“Many people need help balancing their sustainability values with their need to support their families or to advance their careers,” he said. “That’s where I tend to work. Recently, I have also been interested in ways to help people manage apprehensions about climate change or their ecological footprint, or so-called ‘eco-anxiety.’”

In addition to teaching, Doherty runs his own private practice and last year launched the academic journal Ecopsychology. The journal seeks to place psychology and mental health disciplines in an ecological context and recognizes the links between human health, culture, and the health of the planet. With its groundbreaking and diverse collaboration of psychotherapists, social science researchers, and contributors from other environmental-related fields, Ecopsychology is the only peer-reviewed journal of its kind.

Doherty also participated in the American Psychological Association’s climate-change task force, which last year produced a 230-page report urging psychologists to play a larger role in limiting the effects of climate change. Doherty was the only clinician on the task force, and he took the lead on addressing the psychosocial impacts of climate change. The final report pointed to many psychological barriers that have led to society’s slow reaction to climate change, including mistrust, denial, and habit.

“We looked at issues ranging from the known effects of events like hurricane Katrina to developing knowledge about the emotional and psychological effects of climate change messages in the media,” Doherty said. “We also discussed issues like diversity and social and economic disparities among those who are directly impacted by climate change.”

Beyond questions of climate change at the global level, ecopsychology also offers new perspectives on problems individuals face in their day-to-day lives.

Another recent New York Times article examines the ways in which families across the country are negotiating the steps they can take to save the planet. In the article, Doherty argues that people can’t help but to ask themselves questions about their impact on the environment.

“It touches every part of how they live: what they eat, whether they want to fly, what kind of vacation they want,” he said.

Between his commitments in the classroom, his practice, advising local and national organizations, and leading the national discourse on ecopsychology, Doherty is fully engaged in the work he loves. In a recent post on his blog, Personal Sustainability, Doherty wrote the following:

“My work is not easy but I go to bed every night feeling like I am part of the solution. Where do I get my energy? From the good people that I work with.”

The Ecological Unconscious – Links for Further Exploration

Rather than do a commentary on the article, I wanted to offer a sort of annotated list of links of people and concepts mentioned in the article. Here they are, in no particular order:

• Wikipedia page for Theodore Roszak, author of The Voice of the Earth: An Exploration of Ecopsychology, The Making of the Counter Culture, The Making of an Elder Culture, and Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind
• Ecopsychology Journal
• E.O. Wilson Biophilia Center and the book, Biophilia
• Sustainable Self – Dr. Thomas Doherty’s web site, and Personal Sustainability, Doherty’s blog.
• Patricia Hasbach – therapist employing ecopsychological practices.
• Peter H. Kahn, Jr. and his Human Nature blog
• Rewilding: Wikipedia on Rewilding, Rewilding Institute.
• Gregory Bateson, described in the article as “a major influence on eco­psychologists and something of a lost giant of 20th-century intellectual history”: Wikipedia on Bateson, author of Steps to an Ecology of Mind: Collected Essays in Anthropology, Psychiatry, Evolution, and Epistemology
• Wikipedia on Glenn Albrech, coined the neologisms “solastalgia” and “soliphilia”.
• Kate MacDowell, the artist who’s work compliments the article
• Comments section for the New York Times article

There was one part of the article that really struck me:

So what to do? How do you go about rebooting human consciousness? Bateson’s prescription for action was vague. We needed to correct our errors of thought by achieving clarity in ourselves and encouraging it in others — reinforcing “whatever is sane in them.” In other words, to be ecological, we needed to feel ecological. It isn’t hard to see why Bateson’s ideas might appeal to ecopsychologists. His emphasis on the interdependence of the mind and nature is the foundation of ecotherapy. It is also at the root of Kahn’s notion that “rewilding” the mind could have significant psychological benefits. But it also isn’t hard to see how the seeming circularity of Bateson’s solution — in order to be more ecological, feel more ecological — continues to bedevil the field and those who share its interests.

While reading it, I realized that this is exactly what part of the Ecology of Leadership program does…gives us a prescription for rebooting our operating systems through the daily sit spot practice and by creating a space for us to develop our awareness of our interconnectedness…we ARE nature.

It’s very encouraging to see mainstream approaches to this topic appearing!