Eco psychotherapy

Depending on availability I offer outdoor sessions in Hampstead Heath towards the east side of Parliament Hill.   Whilst I prefer not to refer to the earth and nature as a resource, in the way that we humans can see it as a something to make us feel better, it is most definitely a beautiful, patient place that is waiting for our return, to go back into relationship with it.  It is a very small and constricted place inside ourselves in which we try to do all the work as described in the psychotherapy section. Whereas the intensity of the inner gaze and focus on ourselves being inherently ‘wrong’ can for some clients, expand and soften when sitting outside. The sounds, the temperature of the air, the colours, a smell, the changing seasons, animals, can sometimes act as facilitators to access metaphor or symbols when the inner unconscious world struggles to bring the feelings into every day language to help this non verbal place inside of us to tell it's story. It offers a way in and then back out. As with therapy in general, It can help to hold  that process of lifting the inner gaze, without abandoning oneself, and widening the gaze into the outer world. A bit like holding your own hand as you arrive somewhere new, maybe scary and exciting. Of course, this is not exclusive to outdoor therapy at all and I work to bring this to all our sessions together. However, if this peaks your curiosity, trust that.   We can also consider our own ecological selves and where we are personally in the arc of natures cycles, both in literal physical time as well as the subtle mysterious phases and transitions that life leads us through.   Working outdoors can also begin to open up a sort of ‘wondering’ in us, a curiosity with the other-than-human world, that communicates with us as most early humans experienced and lived by. This is a whole subject and explored further in the section on the The Wild Tongue / Listening to the Land.