Ecotherapy: A field guide

Bringing unity to diversity in a wildly emergent field.

A few years back, Keith Tudor and I met in Auckland for a chat. At the time, Keith was considering inviting a small group of researchers to explore the emerging field of ecotherapy, especially in the context of psychotherapy education and training at the university where he works. He invited me to join the group based on my extensive experience as a hands-on ecotherapy practitioner and trainer.

The group talked. As the dialogue developed, it became clear that each member had different ideas of what ecotherapy is, or could be. Moreover, it became apparent that there were no satisfactory definitions of the field and that the language used to describe it was often confusing and contradictory. We decided that the first step for this group, then, was to work out what ecotherapy is and how this disparate new topic might be organised in ways that support it as a field of theory and practice.

The idea emerged to undertake a scoping review of ecotherapy and some of the terms used to describe it. Ben Classen joined the process as a researcher and compiled a solid first draft review. Of course, this raised more questions than it answered. At this point, some of the group withdrew due to other commitments. With their blessing, Keith and I took the work forward, weaving some historical, cultural, and professional threads around Ben’s work in order to add context and respond to the questions raised.

Patterns started to emerge. Differences and similarities between terms, ideas, and practices crystallised. Eventually, the idea of defining ecotherapy fell apart altogether, yielding instead to the need for a much wider and more inclusive view. This led to the development of a metatheory, which provides an organising principle to the field, while, importantly, not forcing any one approach or practitioner into accepting a concrete definition: it allows diversity in unity.

However, we then found ourselves questioning just how much diversity the field could encompass. Where did ecotherapy come from, and who owns the terms, ideas, and practices that form its foundations? These types of questions led to the need for more voices to be heard, so we decided to invite various perspectives, including those of Indigenous peoples and practitioners who operate outside the formal boundaries of traditional, ‘western’ psychotherapy.

These broader views were humbling, and we acknowledge their richness in both expanding and challenging our original research.

This book truly emerged. It was actually never even intended as a book! It started as a conversation, a web of curiosities, a conundrum of tensions that became an inevitable work.

Having written it, we now see that it is a necessary text, and one that was long overdue. It attempts to stem the shallow flow of New Age fuzziness, individualism and consumer culture entering this powerful and revolutionary field. It also calls for humility amongst western practitioners and lays down a challenge against professional arrogance and appropriation, and the ‘narcissism of small differences’ that can pervade the industrial biomedical model.