This week, I am in conversation with Linda Buzzell who is a psychotherapist, ecotherapist, author, and pioneer in the field of ecopsychology, working at the intersection of psychology, ecology, and culture since the late 1990s.

Linda co-edited 'Ecotherapy: Healing with Nature in Mind' with Craig Chalquist and has written widely on the ecological crisis as both a psychological and spiritual challenge.

In this episode, we explore what ecotherapy truly means - not as a treatment or technique, but as a way of healing our relationship with the living Earth.

We talk about nature as therapist, community as medicine, and what it means to move from a culture of domination to one of partnership and reciprocity.

Topics include:

• Ecotherapy as healing our relationship with our home world.
• Level one vs level two ecotherapy from personal benefit to reciprocal, culture-shifting practice.
• Nature as the ultimate therapist practitioner as catalyst, guide, witness.
• Eco-psychotherapy within clinical practice and the wider, community-facing field of ecotherapy.
• Zookosis in animals as a mirror for human nature-deficit and why habitats matter for sanity.
• Evidence beyond exercise research showing green and blue contact improves mood and health.
• Caution on “nature prescriptions” moving beyond individual fixes to place, community, and systems.
• Rooting in place bioregionalism, terra psychology, and rebuilding bonds with land.
• Decolonising therapy learning from Indigenous wisdom without appropriation and with repair.
• From dominator culture to partnership Riane Eisler’s lens and McGilchrist’s hemispheres.
• Eco-spirituality reclaiming the sacred through seasons, ceremony, bodies, and relational awe.
• The path of hope small groups, community ecotherapy, and standing together for the living world.

Shownotes:

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/podcasts/episode-77-the-deeper-work-of-ecotherapy-with-linda-buzzell/

Music by Geoff Robb: www.geoffrobb.com 

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Mentioned in this episode:

How to Teach Climate Change

https://theoutdoorteacher.com/climate