Earth and Psyche

Our thesis is relatively simple. For tens of thousands of years, our species coevolved with nature and developed a deep kinship with the more-than-human world. It's what we refer to in our book as our totemic selves. Elizabeth Marshall Thomas (2006) calls it the Old Way. We are part of the Old Way. Its patterns and needs are with us still, although noticeable now in often-disjointed aspects of our lives. For example, we travel long distances to vacation in spots of natural splendor. We enjoy walking along the ocean's edge, romping with our dog in a nearby park, or partaking of some wine and cheese as the sun sets from a bluff-top venue. Home prices are almost always higher when there is natural beauty out the window. Water views are especially valued. We enjoy gardening. Birding. We send flowers to people to cheer them up and to celebrate.

Neuropsychoanalysis explores experimentally and theoretically the philosophically ancient discussion of the relation of mind and body, and seems well placed to overcome the problem of a “mindless” neuroscience and a “brainless” psychology and psychotherapy, especially when combined with a greater awareness that the body itself, not only the brain, provides the material substrate for the emergent phenomenon we call mind. However, the mind-brain-body is itself situated within a complex ecological world, interacting with other mind-brain-bodies and the “non-human environment.” This occurs both synchronically and diachronically as the organism and its environment (living and non-living) interact in highly complex often non-linear ways. Psychoanalysis can do much to help unmask the anxieties, deficits, conflicts, phantasies, and defenses crucial in understanding the human dimension of the ecological crisis. Yet, psychoanalysis still largely remains not only a “psychology without biology,” which neuropsychoanalysis seeks to remedy, but also a “psychology without ecology.” Ecopsychoanalysis (Dodds, 2011b; Dodds and Jordan, 2012) is a new transdisciplinary approach drawing on a range of fields such as psychoanalysis, psychology, ecology, philosophy, science, complexity theory, esthetics, and the humanities. It attempts to play with what each approach has to offer in the sense of a heterogeneous assemblage of ideas and processes, mirroring the interlocking complexity, chaos, and turbulence of nature itself. By emphasizing the way the mind-brain-body studied by neuropsychoanalysis is embedded in wider social and ecological networks, ecopsychoanalysis can help open up the relevance of neuropsychoanalysis to wider fields of study, including those who are concerned with what Wilson (2003) called “the future of life.”

For over 2 million years the brain of our genus has been shaped by interaction with the natural environment. For centuries and across cultures, philosophers, physicians, poets, nature writers and romantics have extolled the mentally rejuvenating and uplifting power of time spent in nature. During the industrial revolution and with the rapid expansion of urban centers, some physicians warned that human disconnect from nature was not without peril in the realm of human health and vitality.

As the US encroached upon indigenous territory, the government never allowed native women to negotiate.

© Dr. Lynn Gehl, Gii-Zhigaate-Mnidoo-Kwe -- Processes of colonization have been harmful to Indigenous people.  Not only in terms of the denial of access to land and resources to live a good life, but also in terms of the way knowledge has been gathered, interpreted and constructed into institutions, policy, and law; as well as the process of dissemination.  This colonial process of knowledge production is no longer acceptable practice as Indigenous people have had enough.

Abstract

Comparing two very different genres of writing, Richard Nelson’s nature writing about his experiences among the Koyukon tribe in northern Alaska and Carl Jung’s work on the primitive psyche, this article highlights the need for modern, Western people to recover an indigenous relationship with the natural world. Jung declares that one of the biggest tragedies of Western civilization is the loss of the numinous that has resulted in the dehumanizing of the natural world. Examining Jung’s controversial use of the terms “primitive” and participation mystique, we discover that what modern man has considered to be a more “civilized” higher state of consciousness has been wrongly equated with ego-consciousness, thus resulting in a limited understanding of the unconscious psyche. This article points out that the way beyond the “cult of consciousnesses” is to attend to that which the rational mind does not understand: dreams, symptoms, and the presence of archetypes. By doing so, the Western heroic ego, along with its need to dominate and control nature, is dismantled, opening the door for a participatory relationship with both psyche and nature. Whereas Jung’s work is highly theoretical, Richard Nelson’s writing provides insight into the lived experience of these ideas. The aim here is not for Western people to appropriate that which belongs to native people but rather to learn that there is more mystery to the world than ego-consciousness is able to contain. This, says Jung, is the goal of individuation.

Ecopsychology began in the 1960s—earlier than that if we include the work of Robert Greenway with his Sonoma State graduates in the backcountry—as a series of conversations between activists, environmentalists, culture critics, and psychotherapists about why psychology and ecology were not on speaking terms. Out of these conversations grew a new field with ancient roots, new practices for reintroducing humans to the natural world, workshops, journal articles, research projects, and a series of books, including Roszak's Voice of the Earth (1992); Ecopsychology: Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind edited by Roszak, Gomes, and Kanner (1995); Fisher's Radical Ecopsychology (2002), with a second edition published in 2012; and now this new anthology edited by Kahn and Hasbach (2012).

This book review will link viewpoints from the anthology with current areas of discussion and debate within ecopsychology.

All human knowledge and inherent meaning is constructed and passed on through cultural teachings.  The knowledge and meaning serve to help us understand our location within the broader cosmos of the universe, as well as give us guidance and direction in moving forward.  These cultural teachings are passed on to us from our ancestors.

Contrary to what many people may think, all ethnic groups had and continue to have a rich tradition of cultural teachings that serve them in living the good life.  The Indigenous people of Turtle Island do not have the monopoly on cultural teachings and meaning.  Please don’t make this mistake of thinking we do.  As a matter of fact, knowledgeable Elders suggest that all people’s cultural teachings must be respected.  This is what is meant when Anishinaabe Elders offer, “All Creation stories are true”.  Quite simply, without cultural teachings and meaning humans are disenfranchised and lost in a world of chaos and disorder....