Nature-Based Play and Expressive Therapies

Interventions for Working with Children, Teens, and Families

Janet A. Courtney, Jamie Lynn Langley, Lynn Louise Wonders, Rosalind Heiko, Rose LaPiere, Janet A. Courtney, Jamie Lynn Langley, Lynn Louise Wonders, Rosalind Heiko, Rose LaPiere

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9780367712693
• eBook ISBN: 9781000547603
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Mental Health in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

Nature-Based Play and Expressive Therapies addresses a wide range of healing modalities and case studies that can be used in both indoor and outdoor environments.

Each chapter includes vignettes to support the interventions and approaches presented. Readers will find a diverse array of helpful handouts and topics explored, including tips for creating outdoor healing gardens and labyrinths, guidelines for using nature to address trauma, working with sandplay and storytelling in nature, adapting nature-based interventions via telehealth, and much more.

Chapters focus on work with young children and teens in individual settings as well as work with families and groups, making this book an important read for a wide range of mental health professionals.

PART I Essential Nature Foundations

1 An Introduction to the Emerging Practice of Nature-Based Play and Expressive Therapies

Janet A. Courtney and Jamie Lynn Langley

DOI: 10.4324/9781003152767-2

Anna, a 14-year-old teen on the autism spectrum, entered the play therapy room very anxious and dysregulated. The therapist made several attempts to help focus and calm her by offering different sensory-based activities, which only worked to increase her agitation. The therapist, armed with the understanding that nature can play a role in assisting to regulate emotional states, suggested to Anna that they could go outside for a nature walk. Anna agreed and a brief walk led to a huge strong oak tree. The therapist encouraged Anna to place her hands on the trunk of the tree while listening to the surrounding sounds and breathing in the scents of nature. Spontaneously, Anna decided to remove her shoes so she could feel the ground beneath her feet. The therapist invited Anna to imagine that she was also a beautiful strong tree with deep roots going into the ground. She was encouraged to feel the support of the earth beneath her feet. Like a quick shift in the wind, Anna’s emotional state instantly calmed. Sitting now under the shelter of the tree branches with her back leaning against the trunk of the tree, Anna was able to share her inner thoughts and feelings. During the next session, Anna drew an image of the tree that became a central healing metaphor in her on-going therapy.

Introduction

The case in vignette of Anna illustrates how utilizing the elements of nature’s resources to calm and heal resonated with a teenage client. Beginning with a simple nature walk and a grounding connection with a tree, this led to subsequent nature-based play and expressive art experiences (see Appendix A). This client experience speaks to our innate desire to commune with nature at a deeper level. Biologist E. O. Wilson (1993) formulated a widely accepted construct related to our human connection to nature, which he labeled the “biophilia hypothesis” that postulated a pervasive attraction or curiosity—an “emotional affiliation” (P. 31)—that draws people to nature. Kellert (1993) defined it as a “human dependence on nature that extends far beyond the simple issues of material and physical sustenance to encompass the human craving for aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual meaning and satisfaction” (p. 20).

Nature has been long known and described as a healing balm throughout the ages. Human beings have evolved very closely with nature since time immemorial and many cultural traditions around the world are deeply rooted in nature. Mills and Crowley (2014) noted that in all indigenous healing philosophies and stories there is a deep-seated belief in the healing power of nature:

The natural world is our relative, our teacher, and our healer, and that everything is sacred. In these wisdom teachings, the earth, sky, moon, sun, and stars are not viewed through a scientific lens…Instead, they are experienced as our Mother Earth, Father Sky, Grandmother Moon, Grandfather Sun, and the Star Nation—as relatives guiding, protecting, and teaching us many lessons along life’s physical and spiritual paths.

(Mills & Crowley, 2014, p. 3)

Given the opportunity to be exposed to nature at a young age, children have an instinctive yearning to intimately connect with the environment around them. They are multisensory engrossed, and for everything that calls their attention they want to touch, smell, listen, and yes even for the wee ones, taste (yikes!). It is not something they have to be taught. The innate desire to connect with nature is pre-wired from birth. It is thus drawing upon these inherent strengths of children to connect with the natural world that we then build upon and make use of as a therapeutic healing tool in play and expressive therapies.

In this growing field of nature-based therapies, mental health practitioners who work with children and families are discovering the therapeutic benefits of nature-based play and expressive therapies (Chown, 2014, 2018; Courtney, 2017, 2020; Courtney & Mills, 2016; Dhaese, 2011; Ellard & Parson, 2021; Langley, 2019; Mills & Crowley, 2014; Montgomery & Courtney, 2015; Rivkin, 2014; Shin & Swank, 2018; Swank & Shin, 2015; Swank et al., 2020). As mental health practitioners and play therapists adopt nature-based practices, there have been various titles given to this modality, including Nature-Based Play Therapy, Child-Centered Nature-Based Play Therapy, Outdoor Child-Centered Play Therapy, Eco-Play Therapy, Nature Play Therapy, and Outdoor Play Therapy (Langley, 2019). These nature-based expressive and play therapies can encompass various expressive arts as children’s play often includes creative activities, movement, storytelling, and more. Whatever title is used, these nature-based play and expressive therapies fall underneath the umbrella of the growing field of Ecotherapy and Ecopsychology philosophy (Roszak et al., 1995), through which much exciting research is occurring about healing benefits of nature (Buzzell & Chalquist, 2009; Ellard & Parson, 2021). The beneficial use of nature is also flourishing in school curriculums and after school programs such as the Forest Schools in the United Kingdom (Knight, 2013, see also https://www.forestschools.com/), the Bush Kinder schools in Australia, or the Scandinavia concept of udeskole, meaning “outdoor school” (Bentsen, 2013; Brostöm, 1998).

Nature and Children: A Call to Action

One of the leading contributors to this bourgeoning interest in children’s need for nature is credited to journalist Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods, who coined the phrase “Nature Deficit Disorder” to describe the growing concern of children having reduced and low access to nature (Louv, 2008). While not a medical designation, this has been attributed as more of a “call to action.” As such, it has led to an overall identification of concerns related to children’s decline in physical and mental health including attention-deficit disorder, depression, anxiety, and others. Emerging research shows support for time in nature as emotionally beneficial, especially for children (Ellard & Parson, 2021; Swank & Shin, 2015). However, children and families are often more out-of-touch with nature than ever before.

In current society, children are often missing essential nature exploration. This can be attributed to various reasons such as technological distractions, schools cutting back on recess, lack of access, and even parental concerns for perceived harm of being outside (Courtney & Nowakowski-Sims, 2019; Louv, 2008). However, Louv advocates, “Every child needs nature. Not just the ones with parents who appreciate nature. Not only those of a certain economic class or culture or gender or sexual identity or set of abilities. Every child” (Louv, 2012a, para 1, sent. 1–4). It is only within the past 150 years, since the beginning of the industrial revolution, that we have slowly lost our visceral connection to nature and land. As humans we are part of nature and many people still feel a deep need to connect with the natural world. Many of today’s children experience nature, not by direct contact but instead by classroom representations, internet exposure, video games, and so forth. A recent study by Michaelson et al. (2020) examined why “screen time” for adolescents reduces time in nature. The outcomes indicated that the teens perceived that being outside in nature was uncomfortable and was associated with a “loss of control” while being indoors was perceived as “comfortable and safe.” The addictive component of screen time was also indicated as a barrier to getting outside (Michaelson et al., 2020). Furthermore, community land restrictions, fear of litigation, and growing safety concerns have all made their contribution to this ever-increasing disconnect between children and the natural world. Conn (1995) noted, “The most obvious effect of the industrial age is that much of what we touch in our everyday lives is far removed from its roots in the Earth” (p. 160).

Some professionals are exploring the possibility that many of the behavioral disorders observed in children might well be, in part, a consequence of this disconnect (Louv, 2008, 2012; Rivkin, 2014; Swank & Shin, 2015). Many therapists who work with children in a traditional playroom setting have, for the most part, neglected to include nature objects, such as plants, flowers, shells, and stones, and the wonderful and meaningful metaphors that they inspire, substituting instead a room of plastic objects. Most trainings in play and expressive therapies do not often include that a play space can also be conducted outdoors where the gifts of nature can be used as therapeutic materials.

Nature and the Therapeutic Powers of Play

When children play in nature outside, there is often an exuberance that accompanies this play. As they leave the constraints of being indoors, children are naturally and instinctively louder, faster, and even freer in their outdoor play. As Charles Schaefer, known affectionately as the “father of play therapy,” is often quoted: “We are never more fully alive, more completely ourselves, or more deeply engrossed in anything than when we are playing” (Schaefer, 1994, p. 66). This is especially true when playing outside! It has been noted that Margaret Lowenfield, another play therapy pioneer, included an outdoor play garden area for her child clients (refer to, https://lowenfeld.org/). One can observe that even the most inattentive child can quickly become focused on watching a worm crawling on the ground, and an anxious teen can become calmer when looking for images made by clouds in the sky. Conducting therapeutic activities outside in nature can lead to more opportunities for messy play, risky mastery play, and unstructured free play—all of which are often in short supply for children, but so very needed for optimal emotional growth and development.

Play in and of itself, whether indoors or outside, provides curative factors for change. These were f...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Appendices and Handouts
• List of Vignettes and Case Studies
• List of Figures and Tables
• Foreword by Eliana Maria Vedruna Gil
• Acknowledgments
• About the Editors
• About the Contributors
• Introduction by Lawrence C. Rubin
• PART I: Essential Nature Foundations
• PART II: Cultural Considerations
• PART III: Healing Nature-Based Trauma Therapies
• PART IV: Nature Play Therapy Models and Other Individual Therapeutic Applications
• PART V: Nature-Based Family Interventions
• PART VI: Nature-Based Storytelling Interventions
• PART VII: Closing Activities
• Index