Nature Guided Therapy

Brief Integrative Strategies For Health And Well Being

George W. Burns

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2018
• ISBN:
  9781317771975
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Beginning with an evolutionary history of the relationship between man and his environment, Nature-Guided Therapy takes us on a cross-cultural journey into traditional healing disciplines, such as ethno-medicine, sociobiology, and anthropology. By examining clinical data, empirical scientific investigations, and anecdotal accounts, Dr. George Burns helps point the way to healing benefits of a balanced relationship with the environment. Case histories and step by step procedures for utilizing nature-guided strategies are also presented. Designed as an immensely practical guide for clinicians, this volume contains over 80 therapeutic exercises and a variety of nature-based strategies to help augment clinical skills regardless of one's theoretical orientation. Also included is the author's Sensual Awareness Inventory to help access the client's experiences that may facilitate relaxation, happiness, and wellness. This book provides a fascinating read that can expand our views, challenge our therapeutic paradigms, broaden our clinical practice, and provide simple yet pragmatic treatment interventions.

PART I

NATURE-GUIDED THERAPY

Chapter 1

NATURE HEALS

A way of doctoring

Is more than healing.

It is something to do

With life itself.—Ainslie Meares (1985)

“There is now a mismatch between the human mind and the world people inhabit,” claim Ornstein and Ehrlich (1989, p. 9). Arguing that industrialization and technology have outstripped our biological evolution, they consider this mismatch as having a negative effect on our personal relationships and our relationships with our environment. It may also, they claim, be a significant source of emotional discontent and physical disease.

Mismatch is a term picked up by a number of researchers and authors to describe, first, the detachment of humans from their natural and evolutionary history, and, second, the consequences of that dissonance on our physical and psychological well-being. Bateson (1980) lamented that most of us have severed the unifying bond between biosphere and humanity. The loss of what he coined “the pattern which connects” is seen by others (Garrett, 1994; Nesse & Williams, 1996) as one of the major causes of disease. According to Nesse and Williams, we now live in an environment so alien to that from which we evolved that “natural selection has not had time to revise our bodies for coping with fatty diets, automobiles, drugs, artificial lights and central heating. From this mismatch between our design and our environment arises much, perhaps most, preventable disease” (1996, p. 9). What they assert, in regard to our physical functioning, seems equally applicable to a psyche detached from its historic milieu and sources of nurturing.

Roszak lays the responsibility for this psyche-environment detachment in psychological theory and practice squarely at the feet of Freud. “As much as any other Positivist philosopher of his day, Freud toiled under the influence of one of the most commonplace images in our language: the spatial metaphor that locates the psyche ‘within’ and the real world ‘outside’“ (1992, p. 44). In fact, Freud actively steered therapy away from the outer world of nature. He declared, “Nature is eternally remote. She destroys us—coldly, cruelly and relentlessly” (cited in Roszak, 1996, p. 22). This wedge, so actively driven between psychology and nature, led Roszak to conclude, “The result was a psychotherapy that separated person from planet” (1992, p. 44).

“In clinical psychology and psychiatry … a powerful proportion of professionals still strictly adhere to person-centered approaches,” assert Demick and Andreoletti. They argue that “the unit of analysis in psychopathology might more aptly be conceptualized as the person-in-environment system” (1995, p. 65). For nature-guided therapy, the person-environment relationship is both the unit of analysis and the basis of treatment.

It is from the natural ecology that our species evolved. We are a part of our environment, and, unless we are living in a state consonant with that environment, we can expect neither health nor happiness. According to Pigram, we have a “genetically coded predisposition to respond positively to natural-environment content” (1993, p. 402). Examining how we function effectively in nature—and how we reap restorative benefits from nature—he concludes, “The implication is that everyday, unthreatening natural environments tend to promote faster more complete recuperation from stress than do urban settings” (1993, p. 402).

To examine the therapeutic benefits of the person-nature connection, this chapter begins with a historic and evolutionary exploration of our relationship with nature. It proceeds to investigate the psychological and physical healing powers of nature as evidenced in traditional models of healing, recent scientific findings, clinical applications, and anecdotal accounts.

ORIGINS OF A NATURAL RELATIONSHIP

In the beginning, according to modern creation theorists, a star exploded. Particles were hurled through space. These heavyweight atoms, remnants of that supernova explosion, formed the origins of our planet at least 5 billion years ago. The atmosphere, made up of gases such as methane, ammonia, nitrogen, and helium, was constantly bombarded by energy sources such as ultraviolet radiation, gamma rays, electrical discharges, and meteoric impacts (Maturana & Varela, 1987). These energies initiated movements in the atmosphere that, in turn, resulted in chemical reactions.

At the birth of the original star, there had been a molecular homogeneity; with the process of chemical transformation in the earth’s formative years, however, there developed an ongoing diversification of molecular structures. As a result, the first singular celled life form began to emerge around 4,000 million years ago.

The next major step toward life on earth was the emergence of photosynthesis, by which some living organisms were able to convert the sun’s energy into complex organic molecules. Photosynthesis resulted in the release of oxygen into the atmosphere and consequently enabled the development of organisms that not only tolerated but, in fact, used this gas for their growth and survival. Oxygen, converted into ozone, began to filter the sun’s ultraviolet radiation so that the planet became a more conducive environment for the evolution of our current life forms.

Reanney, a biochemist and microbiologist, described this history as “more fantastic than the strangest dream of the wisest seer” (1994, p. 35). He claims that there is a direct and unbroken line that binds us physically, as well as in our consciousness, to a universe of which we are an integrated part.

Using the example of an atom of iron that resides in our bloodstream, Reanney states: “It was smelted into being in the fiery furnace that was the brilliant core of a giant star; it was flung across space by the violence of a supernova when that star exploded into an apocalypse that had the brilliance of a million suns; it congealed in the rocks of a just-born planet; it was rubbled into soil by wind and water and the action of microbes; it was taken up and made flesh by a plant; and it now lives in a red cell, circling the rivers of your blood, helping you breathe and keeping your consciousness afire, here, now” (1994, p. 35).

The physical interconnectedness of all elements of our ecology is now recognized by many scholars. Suzuki claims, “Every creature alive today can trace his, her, or its, ancestry back to that first primordial cell. All life on earth is truly related” (1990, p. 224). On the other hand, an eon of molecular change that traces the atoms of our being back to a starry apocalypse leads Reanney to conclude that “the profound insight that ‘All is One’ is the truth of the universe” (1994, p. 36).

EVOLUTION OF A NATURALLY HEALTHY RELATIONSHIP

According to Bowden, Dovers, and Shirlow (1990), since our ancestors began to explore the open savanna as an environment in which to live and flourish, there have been four distinct ecological phases that reflect the relationships that existed between the human species and the ecosystems of the biosphere.

The Hunter-Gatherer Phase

This phase, the longest of the ecological phases, was characterized by a process of natural selection. This means that the most adapted and best environment-suited individuals were more likely to survive and reproduce. As a result, advantageous genes and acquired learnings were passed on in a dynamic way from generation to generation. By this process our species developed the best biological fit to its ecosystem. Not only were biological characteristics of skeleton and physiology being selectively screened but also characteristics such as intelligence, behavior, and adaptive skills (Nesse and Williams, 1996). Individuals who understood and related with the closest affinity to nature were most successful in overcoming inherent dangers and using natural resources. Such individuals had the evolutionary advantage of surviving longer and reproducing more successfully.

Early Farming Phase

With the beginnings of agriculture in certain regions of the world some 10,000 to 12,000 years ago, humans still needed a close affinity with their ecosystem. They needed to understand the nature and fertility of the soil, the changing of the seasons, the times of rain, the patterns of growth. With this phase we also see an attitudinal change, particularly in the middle to latter stages. Mason (1993) refers to it as the period of “Agri-Culture,” splitting the word to emphasize that with farming came a cultural shift that was to have a significant future impact on both humanity and the biosphere.

Early Urban Phase

Urbanization began in southwestern Asia around 5,000 to 9,000 years ago. People gathered together for convenience, for protection, and for satisfaction of cultural needs. Occupations became more specialized as specific trades developed. Urban dwellings began to put different demands on the ecosystems, as evidenced in the first cities of Mesopotamia where the need for construction as evidenced in the first cities of Mesopotamia where the need for construction timber quickly denuded the region’s forests. Humans began to lose direct contact with, and accountability to, nature.

High Energy Phase

Although the shortest of the four phases, spanning only the last 150 to 200 years and confined largely to the Western world, this period has been one of high ecological impact.

The relevance of these ecological phases becomes more apparent when we examine them on a comparative time scale in regard to our physical and emotional adaptation. If we consider a human generation as 25 years (Bowden, Dovers, & Shirlow, 1990), it has been more than 100,000 generations since our ancestors moved from the trees to the plains of East Africa. Just 500 generations have passed since the very beginnings of agriculture, and the high energy phase has spanned just six to eight generations, with much technology (for example, television and home computers) arriving in most of our life spans.

What this means is that our historic and evolutionary adaptation has been in an environment different from that in which most of us now reside. We are not only particles of an exploded star; we have also adaptively developed a biological fit to our natural ecosystems. If we are at our optimal levels of consonance in that environment, then it also follows that we are likely to be at our optimal levels of physical and emotional well-being. It is logical to assume that the environment to which we are most adapted will be our healthiest.

Contrary to the common concept that Neanderthals were unhygienic and unhealthy, Bowden, Dovers, and Shirlow argue that our ancestral hunters and gatherers were “for most of the time in a good state of health” (1990, p. 41), probably healthier than we are today. Primeval people were largely free from the infectious diseases that spread so rapidly in high-density living (Garrett, 1994). Cholera, typhus, influenza, and tuberculosis were relatively unknown prior to urbanization. Tuberculosis is now the major killer disease in developing countries, accounting for 26% of avoidable adult deaths. Expanding urban populations have seen an increase in TB rates, such as the 18% rise in the United States since 1985 (Nesse & Williams, 1996).

Technology, too, has been directly responsible for the spread of some infectious diseases. Human hosts, in a matter of hours, can carry new strains of influenza around the globe aboard international flights. Hotel air-conditioning provided the perfect home and means of dispersal for the organism causing staphylococcal concentrations and the potentially fatal toxic shock syndrome (Nesse & Williams, 1996).

Lifestyle problems, such as cardiovascular disease, cancer, dental caries, duodenal ulcers, and diverticulitis, were rare among our ancestors, as were the nutritional problems of malnutrition and obesity. Admittedly, for several reasons, their life span was not as long, but Bowden, Dovers and Shirlow claim that “hunters and gatherers were less likely to be sick than the modern city dwellers” (1990, p. 41).

TRADITIONAL WISDOM ABOUT NATURE’S HEALING POWERS

Traditional wisdom has long held that nature not only promotes health but also heals. Health, according to traditional healers, is a holistic concept, referring to physical wellness as well as to an emotional and spiritual well-being. A oneness of the person with his or her ecology and cosmology, in itself, means wellness. Disruption of that balanced relationship leads to illness, whether physical, mental, or spiritual. Restoration of the balance, by reestablishing open communication with the forces of the universe, restores health.

There are several important characteristics of the close interactions that traditional healing systems have with nature.

Natural Phenomena: Sources of Health and Well-Being

Specially defined natural sacred sites are seen by many cultures as both powerful and therapeutic. Swan, exploring the relationship between such sacred places in nature and transpersonal experiences, noted that “plants, animals, stones and all forms of nature are seen as being messages for spiritual images and information from a world beyond this one.” When people visit these sacred places, they often report entering a special “mind space” (1988, p. 22).

Mazumdar and Mazumdar (1993) describe the processes of attachment to sacred places in natural landscapes, giving examples of how the Himalayas for Indian Hindus and Tibetan Buddhists have been venerated as the abode of deities and ancestors, in the same manner as the Shinto and Buddhists of Japan relate to Mount Fuji or Hindu Balinese sanctify Mount Agung. The affectionate term Ma Ganga (Mother Ganges) is a metaphor for subcontinent Hindus of the relationship between river and believer.

Cross-cultural similarities in revering the “cosmic mountain” and “world Cross-cultural similarities in revering the “cosmic mountain” and “world tree” in the cosmology of shamanism are provided by Eliade (1989), who also describes how natural settings can be sanctified by the occurrence of a miracle, a healing, a vision, or a significant event in the life of a religious leader (Eliade, 1959).

For the Temair people of Malaysia, like most other non-Western cultures, “illness agents come from the mountains, fruits, and river rapids; from the same origins come the spirit guides that can effectively engage them” (Roseman, 1991, p. 130). For these indigenous people health and medicine are intricately interwoven with music, dance, culture, and environment.

Interactions with Nature

Well-being has long been seen as an interactive process between the person and the environment. A shaman may direct his patients to engage in interactive rituals such as journeying to a particular natural site, be it a revered tree, cave, or thermal pool, and communicating with that place through offering sacrifices, meditation, or prayers. Hammond-Tooke, referring to such processes in South African traditional medical practices, comments that “because the sickness they are suffering is sent from the ancestors, its curing depends not on medicines but on rituals” (1989, p. 107).

“One bargains with nature, apologizes for intruding upon it, begs pardon of the animals one hunts and kills, tries to make good the losses one has brought about, offers sacrifices and compensation. Sanity is just such a matter of balance and reciprocity between the human and not-human. The very idea that the two can be segregated, that the human world should or even can be treated as autonomously self-contained, would be the very height of madness for a traditional psychiatry. The connection between the two is not simply a matter of survival but of moral and spiritual well-being” (Roszak, 1992, pp. 79–80).

The shaman seeks, through rituals and prescribed assignments, to establish and maintain the vital connectedness between human and nature so that the two are interacting in an ongoing, healthy dialogue.

Natural Medicines

Nature may offer what humans need for healing, and humans, through their healer, must acknowledge and reciprocate the environment’s generosity in much the same way as one would a gift from a friend. For nature has been a most generous friend. Bolivian healers have access to some 600 different medicinal herbs. In northwestern Amazonia the Indians make use of at least 1,300 plant species for a variety of medicinal purposes, while ...