The Well-Gardened Mind
eBook - ePub

The Well-Gardened Mind

The Restorative Power of Nature

  1. 352 pages
  2. English
  3. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  4. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Well-Gardened Mind

The Restorative Power of Nature

About this book

One of Garden & Gun’s Favorite Books of 2020

A distinguished psychiatrist and avid gardener offers an inspiring and consoling work about the healing effects of gardening and its ability to decrease stress and foster mental well-being in our everyday lives.

The garden is often seen as a refuge, a place to forget worldly cares, removed from the “real” life that lies outside. But when we get our hands in the earth we connect with the cycle of life in nature through which destruction and decay are followed by regrowth and renewal. Gardening is one of the quintessential nurturing activities and yet we understand so little about it. The Well-Gardened Mind provides a new perspective on the power of gardening to change people’s lives. Here, Sue Stuart-Smith investigates the many ways in which mind and garden can interact and explores how the process of tending a plot can be a way of sustaining an innermost self.

Stuart-Smith’s own love of gardening developed as she studied to become a psychoanalytic psychotherapist. From her grandfather’s return from World War I to Freud’s obsession with flowers to case histories with her own patients to progressive gardening programs in such places as Rikers Island prison in New York City, Stuart-Smith weaves thoughtful yet powerful examples to argue that gardening is much more important to our cognition than we think. Recent research is showing how green nature has direct antidepressant effects on humans. Essential and pragmatic, The Well-Gardened Mind is a book for gardeners and the perfect read for people seeking healthier mental lives.

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Yes, you can access The Well-Gardened Mind by Sue Stuart-Smith in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in Biological Sciences & Mental Health in Psychology. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Dedication
  4. Epigraph
  5. Chapter 1: Beginnings
  6. Chapter 2: Green Nature: Human Nature
  7. Chapter 3: Seeds and Self-Belief
  8. Chapter 4: Safe Green Space
  9. Chapter 5: Bringing Nature to the City
  10. Chapter 6: Roots
  11. Chapter 7: Flower Power
  12. Chapter 8: Radical Solutions
  13. Chapter 9: War and Gardening
  14. Chapter 10: The Last Season of Life
  15. Chapter 11: Garden Time
  16. Chapter 12: View from the Hospital
  17. Chapter 13: Green Fuse
  18. Acknowledgments
  19. About the Author
  20. Notes
  21. Selected General Sources on Nature, Gardens, and Health
  22. Index
  23. Illustration Credits
  24. Copyright