Nurturing the Sustainable Self: Addressing Environmental Issues with Clients

1. Nurturing the Sustainable Self: Talking to clients about environmental issuesThomas Joseph Doherty, Psy.D.May 12, 2007Oregon Psychological Association2007 Annual ConferenceHilton Eugene and Conference CenterEugene, Oregon

2. The environment in the news

5. What would you do? • Reflect on similar issues or experiences • in your own life • in your counseling work • Do a literature review • Consult with a colleague • Obtain education and training • Refer out

6. Outline of this talk • Setting the stage • Surveying the literature • Reviewing the model • A short exercise • Time for discussion

7. APA Ethical Standard 2.0 -- Boundaries of Competence • In those emerging areas in which generally recognized standard for preparatory training do not yet exist, psychologists nevertheless take reasonable steps to ensure the competence of their work and to protect clients/patients, students, supervisees, research participants, organizational clients, and others from harm.

8. Staying on our task • "When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe." • John Muir (1911/ 1988) My First Summer in the Sierra.Boston: Houghton Mifflin, Sierra Club Books.

9. Integrative and psychotherapeutic approaches

10. Ecopsychology • Bridging western culture’s “longstanding, historical gulf between the psychological and the ecological, to see the needs of the planet and the person as a continuum.” • “If psychosis is the attempt to live a lie, the epidemic psychosis of our time is the lie of believing we have no ethical obligation to our planetary home.” • Roszak, T. (1992). The voice of the earth. New York:Touchtone. p. 14

11. The Ecopsychology Reader • Roszak, T., Gomes, M. E., & Kanner, A. D. (Eds.) (1995). Eco-psychology San Francisco: Sierra Club books

12. Ecopsychology? • An orientation within psychology thatexplores the relationship between ecology and the human psyche, encompassing diverse approaches including facilitating contact with nature to promote personal growth and healing and addressing psychological issues, such as addictive behaviors, that influence environmental degradation.

13. Academic and research-based Approaches

14. Environmental psychology • Understanding the mental health benefits of built and green spaces.

15. Attention Restoration Theory and Restorative Natural Settings

16. Restorative Natural Environments • Natural spaces that promote stress management, self reflection, personal meaning, and the restoration of attention and concentration. • Kaplan, S. (2005). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology 15, 169-182

17. Attention Restoration Theory: • A theory describing the health benefits of nature. Natural settings are engaging, so they attract our attention effortlessly. This allows deliberate attention to rest. Restored deliberate attention is then available when needed.

18. Nearby Nature: • Local environments such as parks, gardens, and vacant lots that provide the restorative effects of nature.

19. Research on green spaces and well-being • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Landscape and Human Health Laboratory (LHHL) • Taylor, A. F., Kuo, F. E. & Sullivan, W. C. (2001) Coping with ADD: The surprising connection to green place settings. Environment and Behavior, 33. 54-77 • Kuo, Frances & and Taylor, Andrea F. (2004).  A Potential Natural Treatment for Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder: Evidence from a National Study. American Journal of Public Health, 94. 1580-1586.

20. Nature Deficit Disorder? • A term coined by journalist Richard Louv that describes the human costs of alienation from nature, among them: diminished use of the senses, attention difficulties, and higher rates of physical and emotional illnesses. This is not an officially recognized psychiatric disorder.

21. Children & ADHD • Parents were asked to rate the effects of various activities on attentional functioning and the relationship between greenness of activity settings and symptom severity was examined. • Activities in green settings were more likely to lead to improved ADHD symptoms. • Activities that led to worsened ADHD symptoms were more likely to occur indoors or in barren outdoor settings.

22. Was there a relationship between activities that most affect functioning and the greenness of their setting?

23. Likely settings of activities nominated as “Best” and “Worst” for ADHD symptoms

24. Was there a relationship between greenness of activity setting and ratings of post-activity symptoms?

25. Mean symptom ratings for activities in different greenness settings Better4 3.8 Mean rating of ADHD symptoms after activities 3.6 3.4 3.2 Same3 Much worse 1 Indoors Built outdoor Green outdoor Activity Setting

26. Girls & Greenery • Girls with a view of nature at home scored higher on tests of self-discipline. • On average, a greener a girls view from home • the better she concentrates • the less she acts impulsively • the longer she delays gratification

27. Neighbors & Nature • Green residential spaces strengthen communities • Trees and greenery draw residents into outdoor common spaces and promote neighborhood social ties

28. Plants and poverty • Compared to neighbors and more barren settings, inner-city residents of buildings surrounded by greenery cope better. They report that the most important issues in their lives are: • less neglected • less difficult • briefer in duration • less severe

29. Attention Restoration Theory: The Power of Restorative Natural Environments

30. Restorative Natural Environments • Compatibility • Escape Qualities • Soft Fascination • Extent Kaplan S. (1995) The restorative benefits of nature - Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182. Taylor, A. F., Kuo, F. E.& Sullivan, W. C. (2001). Coping with ADD: The surprising connection to green play settings. Environment & Behavior, 33, 54-77.

31. A Focus on Fascination

32. Hard Fascination vs Soft Fascination

35. Key Point -- Nearby Nature • You don’t always need wilderness to get benefits of restorative natural settings • We can get similar benefits of from "nearby nature" • Parks, gardens, vacant lots, …

36. Biophilia • An evolutionarily determined urge to affiliate with other forms of life. Also includes biophobia, or fear of aspects of the natural environment, such as spiders or snakes, that is thought to have an evolutionary basis.

37. Conservation psychology • Psychological research focusing on how people develop environmental identities and adopt sustainable behaviors.

38. Environmental Identity: • The way we define the environment • Degree of similarity we perceive between ourselves and the natural world • Whether we consider nature and non-human entities to have standing as valued components of the social and moral community • Environmentally derived group affiliations and identities • Clayton, S. & Opotow, S. (Eds.) (2003). Identity and the natural environment: The psychological significance of nature. Cambridge, MA: MIT press

39. Social Justice Approaches • The Hazards of Activism • Maslach, C. & Gomes, M. E. (2006) Overcoming burnout. In(R. M. MacNair et al. (Eds.). Working for peace. (pp. 43-49). Atascadero, California: Impact Publishers

40. Burnout • Symptoms • Exhaustion • Cynicism • Inefficacy

41. Causes of Burnout • An imbalance between the person and the situation: • Work Overload • Lack of control • Insufficient Rewards • Breakdown in Community • Lack of fairness • Values Conflicts

42. Green business & LOHAS • LOHAS: Individuals with concerned with a "lifestyle of health and sustainability” • Naturalites: Part-time, green leaning consumers • Drifters: Those that will move toward green purchases when convenient or popular • Conventional consumers: Purchase based on cost or other factors • Unconcerned consumers

43. Talking with clients about the environment

44. Eco-Anxiety? • “At night I lay awake worrying about which of the myriad climate-related disasters scientists are predicting would come first--flood, famine, heat wave, drought -- and how I might prevent each and every one of them.” • Galst, L. (August/September 2006). Plenty Magazine, (p. 56).

45. Anecdotal Evidence • “A growing number of people have literally worried themselves sick over a range of doomsday scenarios. Their worry has a name: Eco-anxiety.” • Nobel, J. (2007, April 9). Eco-anxiety: Something else to worry about. The Philadelphia Enquirer. Retrieved April 15, 2007

46. Eco-therapy? • Melissa Pickett, with a practice in Santa Fe, says she sees between 40 to 80 eco-anxious patients a month. • They complain of panic attacks, loss of appetite, irritability and unexplained bouts of weakness, sleeplessness and "buzzing," described as an eerie feeling that their cells are twitching. • Pickett's remedies include telling patients to carry natural objects, like certain minerals, for a period of weeks. • Making environmentally friendly lifestyle changes can also prove therapeutic, she says.

47. Research Evidence • Environmental Anxiety and Stress Responses • Environmental Anxiety: • Obsessive worry about health risks and dangers related to environmental toxins or climactic changes

48. Five studies were carried out around hazardous waste sites in California found no evidence suggesting excesses in cancer or birth defects. • However, the total number and the prevalence of many of subjective symptoms were higher in areas near the site than in control neighborhoods. • Neutra R, Lipscomb J, Satin K, & Shusterman D. (1991) Hypotheses to explain the higher symptom rates observed around hazardous waste sites. Environmental Health Perspectives, 94, 31–38.

49. Talking with clients about the environment

50. Some assumptions • Individuals may be experiencing: • consciousness-raising regarding environmental issues and their impact or “ecological footprint” • dissonance between their lifestyle and developing ecological values • possibly clinically significant health symptoms (e.g., stress, worry, hopelessness, and depression)