Since the advent of agriculture and the domestication of animals some 15,000 years ago, a rift has steadily grown between humans and the rest of nature. With the more recent development of the psychological concept of individuality and individual health, however, this schism has grown alarmingly wider. While domestication may be the source of the division between the human and the not-so-human realm, many Western philosophies have, over the years, added to and expanded this separation. Aristotle, Christianity, and the scientific revolution all assisted in the damaging notions that the mind is separate from the body and that humans are separate from nature. The harm that has been wrought in the name of understanding the cosmos has created a rippling effect that continues to devastate the balance of nature.

There are many environmental activists around the world trying to correct the destruction that is occurring, but it is essential to note, as Fritjof Capra points out in his book The Web of Life, that what is happening is actually a crisis of perception. As a result of this human divorce from nature, a very different mind has emerged: one that has lost its root connection with the earth, one that is cut off from the body, and one that views dominance as the principal mode of relating to the rest of nature. Hence, a change in how we perceive nature is the key to any long-term transformation or healing.

The realization that modern-day psychology is not effective in healing this schism has led the way to a new understanding of the human psyche through what Theodore Roszak calls ecopsychology (the merging of eco — the outer world of the environment — and psychology — the inner world of the psyche). This process of reintegrating the psyche into a healthy functional relationship with nature is outlined in Roszak's book, The Voice of the Earth.

His eight fundamental principles of ecopsychology are, briefly:

1) The ecological unconscious is at the core of the mind

2) The ecological unconscious contains the living record of cosmic evolution

3) The goal of ecopsychology is to awaken the inherent sense of environmental reciprocity

4) The need to recover something of the child's innate animistic quality of experience

5) The mature ecological ego is the first step to ethical responsibility

6) The "masculine" traits that tend to dominate need to be reevaluated

7) The importance of small-scale social forms, and

8) The synergistic interplay between planetary and personal well-being.

Because ecopsychology liberates the boundaries of the ego, having a sense of one's place in nature is, perhaps, the pinnacle of knowing.

It can be seen, therefore, that ecopsychology's alternative to current psychological thought includes a much broader picture of health. While psychology confines the psyche to the individual human mind, ecopsychology suggests that the psyche has no rigid boundaries. Indeed, systems theory maintains that rigid boundaries cause any system — human or otherwise — to break down and collapse, because interaction with other systems is crucial for survival. It is common knowledge that nothing can exist within a vacuum. Fluid boundaries — ones that are permeable — allow for growth, change, and new information to pass in and out of the system. Seeing the mind, therefore, without inhibiting the boundaries, allows for a quality of growth that has the possibility of benefiting all of nature.

Go To Ecopsychology Part Two