Psychotherapy addresses and engages the totality of elements forming the mind including, to go back to the original meaning of the word psychē, the soul: the spiritual – in the broadest sense - as well as emotional and relational elements.

How, then, do we best fit int the world? How do we relate to others around us?  How do we live or best life and fulfil our purpose?  Any or all of these questions – or challenges – are good starting points for a supportive, collaborative enquiry over a short or longer period of time. I now work with the assumption that the climate and ecological crisis affects us all at some level, whether we are aware of this or not.  Therefore, I now frame all my work - including talking therapy indoors or online - within the field of Ecotherapy and Ecopsychology. I am familiar with working with trauma and the ‘stuckness’ that can result.  I can and do work ‘online’ via Zoom. I also work with the assumption that the climate and ecological crisis affects us all at some level; we can, therefore, embrace ‘ecotherapy’ in our work together. 

Ecotherapy as applied ecopsychology, considers human identity, psyche and spirit, as inseparably and intimately part of the natural world.  Healing, becoming whole, involves paying attention to this relationship with Nature. 

Ecotherapy can involve working out-of-doors, getting up close and personal with the natural world consciously and explicitly employed as a support and co-facilitator.  Research shows that this ‘soft fascination’ is deeply restorative of psychological health and general wellbeing. Remembering our own true nature enriches our lives with gratitude. The corollary is that our psychological distress is always, at the level of the collective unconscious, bound up with the current environmental crisis and climate change.  We do not have to take everything personally. Feelings of uncertainty, anxiety, grief and a sense of loss are rational responses. Joanna Macy has written:

‘Until the late twentieth century, every generation throughout history lived with the tacit certainty that there would be generations to follow. Each assumed, without questioning, that its children and children's children would walk the same Earth, under the same sky. Hardships, failures, and personal death were encompassed in that vaster assurance of continuity. That certainty is now lost to us, whatever our politics. That loss, unmeasured and immeasurable, is the pivotal psychological reality of our time’.

The Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh was asked what we need to do to save our world. “What we most need to do,” he replied, “is to hear within us the sound of the earth crying.”