Roots and Wings: ecopsychology and psychosynthesis
A perspective from Helen Sieroda*

I was asked to give a 'potted' definition of ecopsychology and a taste of what it is about this emerging field which captured my imagination over 20 years ago and continues to motivate and inspire me today.

Ecopsychology cares about human flourishing and the flourishing of the 'more-than-human' world, attempting to understand the psychological processes that connect or alienate us from that world. It proposes that human well being and sanity are intimately linked to the earth and argues that a dissociative relationship with nature rejects our roots, leaving us anxiety driven, with a fragile identity, vulnerable to meaninglessness and hubris leading to exploitative

What if we discover that our present way of life is irreconcilable with our vocation to become fully human? - Paulo Freire-

use of the natural world.

Although ecopsychology offers a therapeutic perspective that speaks to the loneliness and alienation we suffer as a result of this estrangement, its work extends beyond the therapy room into nature, encouraging us remember our embeddedness in the world and think systemically about our place in the cosmos.

Some ecopsychologists explore how being in nature bolsters resilience to everyday stresses and deeper sorrows of life, investigating implications of deeper connectedness for mental health and personal growth. Others connect their work to environmental action and sustainable lifestyles critiquing the dominant western paradigm - its culture and history as well as social, economic and political institutions. Alongside these practices is a search for a metaphysics that can speak to the challenges we face in the 21st Century - a world very different to the fin de siècle inhabited by Freud, Jung or Assagioli.

It is this spectrum of perspectives including prosaic, imaginative, reformist and radical that I find so challenging and exhilarating. The depth and breadth fits well with the integrative vision of psychosynthesis. Psychosynthesis also has a vision of self that is permeable and interconnected; but even psychosynthesis can forget we are interdependent, biological beings who need nature as a core condition of human flourishing. Often the natural world seems invisible to our theories, at best viewed as a backdrop to Self realisation. The assumption that human Self is not implicated in more-than-human world, and can be realised independently of the world is enacted unconsciously in much of our practice. But can the Self realise itself independently of a world in which all selves are connected? Can we truly heal or become whole while participating in the destruction of the world?

I see a paradox at the heart of the questions raised by ecopsychology. On the one hand we need to reclaim, honour and cherish our roots; recognise our fundamental connection with the natural world; learn to listen again to the voices of animate earth and remember the story of the universe and our place within it. And it is vital that we understand differentiation is not the problem, or we risk backward looking self-indulgent, nostalgia for an illusory lost golden age - a regress to submerged, pre-personal consciousness. So hand in hand with roots we need wings; to celebrate our human distinctiveness, reflective consciousness and spirit. Perhaps within the contradiction and tension of these two imperatives lies the creative possibility for developing a vision and practice of a future participatory consciousness.

Years ago when I was searching for a way to 'make a difference,' I found the Psychosynthesis & Education Trust; 25 years later I'm passionate about framing action as psychospiritual practice and bringing this perspective to people seeking to participate in building a flourishing, just, resilient world.

If you are interested I invite you to join me on 'The Future in Your Hands' a course I'll run in 2011.

*First published in the P.E.T. Newsletter, Spring 2010