Ecopsychology

Bridging the psyche and the world

A workshop for therapists and healers

Ecopsychology integrates ecology with psychology, so that the human mind and body are viewed in their relationship to nature and the whole web of life. This emerging field of study offers a philosophical ground for a deeper understanding of the human problems that are related to in psychotherapy and all healing work. It likewise offers practical approaches for healing and transformation. Through the lens of ecopsychology, we can look at the causes and treatment of some of the major difficulties faced in therapy such as depression, alienation, addiction, lack of intimacy and existential anxiety.

This workshop will be an exploration of some of the core ideas that have been articulated by theorists and practitioners of ecopsychology. It will include experiential practices that derive from this perspective, and offer direction for future study and experience.

Included will be discussion and exploration of:

* ecopsychology, biophilia and Gaia
* indigenous and shamanic practices of healing
* experiences of relating with nature as healer and therapist
* the role of rites of passage and other nature-based rituals in marking life transitions
* redefining sanity in the context of a culture that is destroying its own life support system
* the human body and mind as part of the web of life

Free lecture:
Friday evening (or Sat.) New Age Center, Nyack

Day long experiential workshop in nature setting:
Sat: 10 - 4 (or Sun) Point of Infinity

Workshop leader: Alan Levin, M.A., L.M.F.T., has studied and taught deep meditation practices and shamanic exploration for the past 35 years. He is a licensed psychotherapist in California, where he also led wilderness quests with an ecopsychological perspective. He founded Holos Institute in 1990, in which he trained and supervised intern therapists integrating spirituality and ecopsychology in their work toward licensure as psychotherapists. He has just moved to Nyack and is beginning a practice of working with individuals and groups with what he calls, "therapy for the mind, heart and soul living in a body."

Additional reflections on ecopsychology:

"Ecopsychologists are drawing upon the ecological sciences to reexamine the human psyche as an integral part of the web of nature."
-Lester Brown
President, WorldWatch Inst.
co-author, State of the World

"...an individual's harmony with his or her 'own deep self' requires not merely a journey to the interior but a harmonizing with the environmental world."
-James Hillman
Jungian analyst, author

"Once upon a time all psychology was 'ecopsychology'. No special word was needed. The oldest healers in the world, the people our society once called 'witch doctors', knew no other way to heal than to work within the context of environmental reciprocity."
-Theodore Roszak
author, The Voice of the Earth