Foundations of Ecopsychology
1. The Earth is a living system. Human beings are fundamentally interconnected with the earth and with all
life. Neither the Earth's problems or humanities can be resolved without taking full account of this
interconnection.
2. Ecopsychology seeks to heal the alienation between person and planet, and to establish a healthy
relationship between the two. The needs of the person are the same as the needs of the planet. The rights
of the person are the same as the rights of the planet.
3. Rather than viewing the ecological dilemma as a crisis `out there', in our physical environment,
Ecopsychology recognizes that human consciousness is intricately involved in creating and healing the
ecological crisis. We are in a crisis of `souľand `spiriť. There is a `screaming'link between pervasive
personal dysfunction and the ecological crisis.
4. Ecopsychology calls for a new cosmology that embraces scienctific models and understandings, spiritual
teachings, ancient wisdom, and the land-based and non-Western knowledge of indigenous cultures.
5. Ecopsychology calls for a profound revisioning of mental health and human consciousness. Today's
dominant models of human consciousness and therapy are pathogenic and define the human being as an
isolated, seperate entity living in a purposeless, mechanical universe. A new vision of sanity and a new
reality principle is needed. The psychology professions and the redefinition of sanity and mental health.
Finding a larger context for its theory and practice: including the biosphere and Gaia. Hillman analogy
of doing therapy in the below cabin of a sinking ship. Developing a sense of relational mutuality, a feel
for permeable boundaries where we recognize that we are the world and theworld is on fire.
There is only one core issue for all of psychology. Where is the me? Where does the `me'begin, stop? Where
does the `other'begin? Where does psyche stop and matter begin? The deepest levels of the psyche
merge with the biological body (Freud) and the physical stuff of the world (Jung). The cut between the
self and natural world is arbitrary. An individuaľs harmony with his/her `own deep self'requires both a
journey to the interior and a harmonizing with the environmental world.
6. The drive to live in harmony with the natural world and its rhythms is deeply imbedded within us.
Suppression of that drive is just as disorienting and damaging as suppression of other human needs. The
core of the mind is the ecological unconscious and suppression of this is the deepest root of madness in
industrial society; open access to the ecological unconscious is the path to sanity. Wild, essential self
must be recognized.
The merger of psyche and nature has implications. The `baďplace I am in may refer not only to a depressed
mood, it may refer to a sealed up office, a set-apart suburban sub-division, or the traffic jam I commute in
between the two.
7. The very notion of sanity must be redefined to include our planetary home. Today's psychology and
therapy `stop at the city limits, as if the soul might be saved while the biosphere crumbles'. we need an
environmentally based definition of mental health. What would a psychology look like that is based on an
ecocentric worldview rather than an egocentric one? By helping people adapt to a destructive society, are
we doing more harm than good? Ecopsychology is an effort to salvage the more intimate bond between
the ego and the world about it as the raw material of a new reality principle. The self with a permeable
boundary whose skin and behavior are soft zones contacting the world instead of excluding it. The psyche
is rooted inside a greater intelligence once known as the anima mundi. At its deepest level, the psyche
remains sympathetically bonded to the Earth that brought us into existence.
8. Ecopsychology embraces the goals of gender equality, racial equality, and cultural justice (honoring and
learning from non-western cultures and indigenous peoples of the world). Multi-culturalism is a key
foundation of this field. Ecopsychology's success will depend upon its ability to construct a genuinely
multicultural self and a global society without racism. The field is limited now to its Eurocentric
perspective and The Wonder Breading of America.
9. Ecopsychology deeply questions the essential sanity of our gargantuan urban-industrial culture, whether
capitalistic or collectivistic in its organization. But it does so without necessarily rejecting the
technological genius of our species or some life-enhancing measure of the industrial power we have
assembled. EP is post-industrial, not anti-industrial in its social orientation. Each stage of human
development and progress must transcend and include the previous stages and understandings.
[From the Shavano Institute, 2000. http://www.shavano.org/html/principles.html]