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Thank you, Robert, for your careful and articulate words.
Your annotated book list is extremely helpful, since I know you read about everything out there, so to get your winnowed down selections is enlightening to me, as I'm sure it will be to all viewers, especially younger ecopsychologists wanting to develop their background in the subject. But let me dive into your opening summary about ecopsychology and the meaning of that term. While I agree with you entirely that the term ecopsychology is now applied to a vast array of disparate and only loosely connected ideas and emphases, I must say that I think the enterprise of trying to reclaim that term in some way closer to what you would like it to mean, is a lost cause. That crossroads was passed long ago. Massive and hidden currents carry cultural language one way or another, and whether we like it or not, the momentum of those currents has carried "ecopsychology" into the broadness that you would prefer to call "human/nature relationship studies" or something like it. I would suggest as an alternative, for us at least in this discussion, which is to try to find and adopt a new term that would represent what you wish "ecopsychology" had come to mean. I will say in my own life and discussions with others, I tend to refer to what I know of your theories as "Greenway ecopsychology". That immediately creates a subset, and it allows us to fruitfully compare that subset with other subsets. Now the term "Greenway ecopsychology" may not be your ultimate choice, but I wonder what you might come up with? Along these lines, we might for a moment look at what other ecopsychologists (human-nature relationists) are doing to define their subsets. From your own booklist, we have for example Andy Fisher and "radical" ecopsychology. We have the Wilber people with "integral ecology". Freya Mathews has "panpsychism". Warwick Fox, "transpersonal ecology". As you know better than me, there are dozens and dozens of others. We might think of David Abram and his phenomenology, Joanna Macy and despair and empowerment, Richard Louv and the nature principle, Jon Young and "deep nature connection", Bill Plotkin with soul craft, Starhawk and others with a goddess or pagan slant, Thich Nhat Hahn and lots of others with various environmental Buddhism spinoffs, and of course all the people with rites of passages of one kind or another. So yes, the field is vast and disparate, but what you have developed has its own unique parameters and its own unique contribution to the whole, but like all subsets, it will also have areas of overlap with what others are saying and doing. Furthermore, since you were one of the originals, before "ecopsychology" had even been coined, I think many of your ideas and practices that were cutting edge and revolutionary at the time, have now been incorporated into their "ecopsychologies", though they may not even know the role you played in bringing them into the cultural matrix. For me, when I think about this subset I'm temporarily calling "Greenway ecopsychology", a number of core ideas come to mind. Certainly, the "psychological wilderness boundary" as opposed to the physical map-drawn wilderness boundary, is significant. You have had volumes to say about how difficult it can be, but how important it is, to be able at least temporarily to step free of our cultural conditioning (which imprints us with a dualistic and alienated relationship with nature) and to experience some degree of true connection, intimacy, and belonging with nature. As part of that, you have analyzed the "disease" or "dysfunction" of current Western materialistic/scientific culture as well as anyone I know. You have made the dynamics and ramifications of "dualism" a particular focus of your theories. Besides wilderness work, you have also worked with and taught meditation as a path of healing, along with many other simple practices like gardening, eating, singing, etc. So maybe as the next direction to go here, I can ask you to consider this idea of beginning to set out more clearly the domain of "Greenway ecopsychology". Your first step may be to propose an alternative tag. One place where I am unclear (even me, your devoted student) is exactly how "ecology" is intertwined with your "psychology". In other words, I don't really remember the science of ecology being a big part of our studies or practice. I mean I always knew it was present, as an underlying influence, but it didn't seem to play as active a role as psychology, sociology, anthropology, consciousness studies, etc. If I had to pick one place where I think your ecopsychology excels, it is in your analysis and critique of the mechanics by which our current culture creates its ego formations and all the problems therein. (As a side note, let me say that this blogging so far is all dealing with theory. I will say now, however, for future directions in this blog, that for me it was your applied practice of group wilderness trips in which you really worked your magic. Truly, that's where it all happened, and I saw great revelations rippling through myself and others. We'll want to talk at some point about what you "did" out there, what the group "did" to each other, and what nature "did" to us all.) Robert has responded in quick order to my questions of Aug. 28. See italic below.
1) What do you mean by “ecopsychology”? We both know it’s a big and encompassing term, with many people using it to include all sorts of different approaches, so it is important at our outset to get some sense of the way we will be using it, and lay out some sense of the boundaries of the territory we intend to include in the term. It would be nice to keep this initial foray into definition fairly concise. One line of definition to consider is: what is the purpose, relevance, or cultural applicability of ecopsychology? In other words, why bother? In 1963 when I first formulated "ecopsychology" (then termed "Psycho-ecology" -- changed for obvious reasons) I was a scientific ecologist with graduate research experience (on the pollution of Lake Washington), and I had stumbled into the Brandeis University psychology department as a writer for Abraham Maslow. The juxtaposing of the two fields in which I was now involved seemed to please the Brandeis faculty, and immediately began stimulating wonderful insights about the human-nature relationship. Not psychology; not ecology -- but a new field, ecopsychology -- with both "sides" of the equation fully honored. (It is also important to note that this development at Brandeis had roots going back into a boyhood spent "in nature" -- gardening at an early age, weather studies "for the war effort", collections of all sorts of creatures, passionate skiing and mountain climbing and back-packing -- a full-on "nature-boy" background. Once establishing this rather primitive "ecopsychology", I began practicing it, rather than developing it: in the founding of an experimental college (Franconia, in New Hampshire), in Peace Corps training, in planning colleges within a University context (UC/Santa Cruz) and finally as a professor and developer of a "wilderness therapy" program at Sonoma State University. And though I was personally bringing to the field a full psychology (with leanings towards trans-personal psychology) and a full ecology practice, I found over time that most of those interested in ecopsychology ("EP") were psychologists rather than ecologists, and I saw the various "discoveries" and "new presentations" of EP drifting further from a juxtaposition of the two fields, psychology and ecology. This is the case to this day. EP has become, in my view at least, a mish-mash of ideas -- about "humans" and about "nature" -- and this about covers anything and everything. And thus the potential of a true, focused EP that includes both some form of psychology and serious scientific ecology and that might go "deep enough" to change things, has been lost. I propose therefore to recover that initial juxtaposition of ecology and psychology. (This is not to say that the myriads of human-nature-relational (HNR) studies (from Deep Ecology to Ecofeminism, Ecospirituality, Ecotherapy, eco this, eco that) do not have value. The public is awakening to "the natural world" in many ways, on many fronts -- in part because of anxiety over the obvious decline of "the environment". There is, I would suggest, massive and multi-faced attempts to at least acknowledge the disjunction (a full-blown dualistic split) between humans and nature. This "war against dualism" has been going on for 100 years at least, and is, thankfully, growing. But the irony is this: as EP evolves as a kind of superficial "cover" for all human-nature-relational expressions (anything and everything), it loses it's power, even as the HNR approaches continue to expand and deepen. I see the HNR approaches as the "bigger" (encompassing) field. Rather than EP attempting to conflate itself into the HNR, I see it as a subset of the larger field. In this way EP might have a very useful depth to add. I believe we need much more than we're now doing -- and a much better understanding of the underlying dynamics -- to achieve that "Great Turning" that Joanna Macy and Thomas Berry speak of. I maintain, therefore, that, amidst all these efforts to "heal the human-nature split" (some very wonderful, some not) -- we need to resuscitate the original formulation of EP: put a clear-languaged psychology together with a serious use of 'real ecology' -- and use this as a doorway (not an end in itself) -- a doorway that will provide a channel into the ability to live within the culture-nature (mind-nature) world as one world -- as one reality. This might be called getting "inside the ride" (the ride being evolution); or it might be called "living within the ecological thought" (see references); or it might be seen as similar if not identical to a spiritual awakening, and so on. But I believe that, for all the beauty and value of the myriads of human-nature joinings flowing out of movies and stories, dance and music, and so on, for all the power of these burgeoning approaches, a focused ecology and psychology, juxtaposed, offers something unique, perhaps a greater depth into the mystery of the mind, and consciousness, and nature, and the cosmos. All I'm saying: real ecology-psychology is worth a serious try -- as an adjunct to HNR studies -- if we are to achieve the mind-value changes necessary for our species to survive. 2) I’d like to ask you about books and authors. I seem to remember from maybe a couple decades ago a master list you were maintaining of books and articles related to ecospsychology. It was an impressively large list even then, so I wonder of its status today. But I’d like to ask you, if possible, to pick 1) five recent (last 10 years) books or articles that you consider most significant to the ecopsychology you have developed, and 2) five books older than 10 years that are most fundamental to building the background to your ecopsychology. If you can provide brief annotations to each choice, giving a hint as to why you value them, that will help us. [OK, but it's a tough question, because there are thousands of good books about the human-nature-relationship (what to many is "ecopsychology writ large"), maybe a few hundred really valuable, and a dozen or so that, historically and currently have, for me at least, been crucial turning points; and there have been no real ecopsychology sources..... yet. So I'll answer the question with those serious reservations.] A. Books enhancing our understanding of the human-nature relationship -- sometimes paralleling what I define as ecopshchology -- often with either the "psychology" side of the equation, or the "ecology" side of the equation, implied but not made explicit. 1. Historically, for me (back more than 10 years)
idea for ecopsychology grew from that moment)
create tools. This is a crucial guide to understand ourselves, and to track on the ways we assume powers -- powers we now see with horror as having such "unintended consequences")
should be memorized, and then transcended -- for his psychology was limited, has materialism a bias he couldn't overcome, and thus, ending with questionable assumptions. But still a profound beginning of EP
his work. But again, the original "Ecology of Mind" should be memorized ..... then transcended)
experience of so-called wilderness -- and this book provides it, in spades. It too is a proto-EP, because Nash delves on the one hand into the psychological base of the American cultures ambivalent attitude towards wilderness, and on the other hand, an almost ecological understanding of un-trammeled nature itself. (I find Max Oelschlaeger's more recent "The Idea of Wilderness" much more profound -- but Nash was a basis for understanding the depth to which a few short weeks immersed -- out of "culture", in "wilderness" -- could perturb one's hold on consensus reality.))
because of our deep understanding of Jung and archetypes, her friendship with Gary Snyder and other poets, her knowledge of Chinese nature poetry, and her ecological understanding, via geology and rivers. Her friendship with Paul Shepard deeply shaped her thinking. She and Max Oelschlaeger collaborated on a wonderful book of readings honoring Paul Shepard.)
the "noosphere" that flows, evolutionarily, from the biosphere and why we must somehow evolve (quickly!) into the "ecozooic")
2. More Recent, still general (more "human-nature-relations" than ecopsychology) that have influenced me
the meaning of the term "radical" in the title). Very short on "real ecology", though assumed at all points. Recent edition, a brilliant critique of "Integral Ecology") (see below)
perspectives" means Wilber's AQAL model ("all quadrants, all levels) and note -- this is all imposed ON the "natural world". It is an immense and useful mess -- if you have no penchant for Wilber's massive work this will not be useful. But if you do, it is a rich, in places scholarly, detailed guide to how human-nature relations can become coherent, given the multiple perspectives that each individual brings to the task. The book needs a strong ecopsychology; the entire edifice is based on "the intersubjective process" -- otherwise, the system would not be just dualistic, but "quadra-listic".
(reneelertzman.com/2012/08/review-of-dodds-book/) this is full-on psychology juxtaposed with full-on ecology -- then moving into chaos theory, and the practical needs to better understand climate change.)
entered "inside the ride" of ecology. His earlier book, "Ecology without Nature" calls up the confusion around "nature" and the ridiculous banality of the use of "eco" for nature -- and it also reflects the current separation between "mind" and "nature" .... and then reveals the illusory nature of this separation by joining the "sides" within ecology.)
the most useful to me; the most recent, "For Love of Matter -- a Contemporary Pan-Psychism" is a primer of pan-psychism, one of the most crucial-to-consider "roads back home". [I know I'm over my limit of books, and there are dozens more I'm leaving out, but I can't help adding the following. For, again, if it is "inside the ride" where a focused EP is meant to take us -- what I term 'querencia' -- then the Zen approach might be the most direct, and most laborious, route to that place!]
The opening questions to Robert Greenway are:
1) What do you mean by “ecopsychology”? We both know it’s a big and encompassing term, with many people using it to include all sorts of different approaches, so it is important at our outset to get some sense of the way we will be using it, and lay out some sense of the boundaries of the territory we intend to include in the term. It would be nice to keep this initial foray into definition fairly concise. One line of definition to consider is: what is the purpose, relevance, or cultural applicability of ecopsychology? In other words, why bother? 2) I’d like to ask you about books and authors. I seem to remember from maybe a couple decades ago a master list you were maintaining of books and articles related to ecospsychology. It was an impressively large list even then, so I wonder of its status today. But I’d like to ask you, if possible, to pick 1) five recent (last 10 years) books or articles that you consider most significant to the ecopsychology you have developed, and 2) five books older than 10 years that are most fundamental to building the background to your ecopsychology. If you can provide brief annotations to each choice, giving a hint as to why you value them, that will help us. |
AuthorDiscussion between Walker Abel and Robert Greenway. Archives
January 2015
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