Evidence-based Support for Nature Therapy

The ethics of mental health counseling require use of treatment methods that are evidence-based to show effectiveness in helping people. Nature-informed therapy methods are no different—they are based solidly in research showing how they can improve wellbeing. The Center for Nature-Informed Therapy has created a model to illustrate how nature-informed therapy has evidence for its efficacy across four domains: Cognitive, Social, Biological, and Spiritual.

Cognitive

Research shows nature is a restorative environment for our minds. The Attention Restoration Theory (Kaplan, 1989, 1995) explains how being in natural environments provides a restful mental experience. Nature has a way of holding our effortless attention, providing an easily engaging environment to capture attention without strain, excessive focus, or overwhelm. This type of cognitive state helps reduce feelings of stress and increases ability to focus upon return to other environments. With extended time outdoors, an effect has been noted on the third day, when cognition and creativity notable enhance (Atchley, Strayer, & Atchley, 2012). This “3 day effect” is significant—after being immersed in nature for at least three days, people performed 50% better on creative problem solving tasks! Does it resonate with you? Can you remember times you stepped outside to clear your head, or the way you felt restored after an outdoor trip?

Social

Much attention has been paid to attachment theory in modern psychology, for good reason. Understanding how we attach to our caregivers and other significant humans in our lives helps us understand ourselves, our patterns, and can enhance our ability to feel connected to others in satisfying ways. However, other humans are not the only things we can apply an attachment lens to. People also experience attachment to places and their environment. Just like our relationships with other people, our relationship to nature can become a means of support, reciprocation, and mutual benefit. We experience “place attachment” to our significant environments (Lewika, 2011). Perhaps it’s a park we used to play at as a child, a place we used to walk with our grandmother, or the features in our yard we see day after day. These relationships with places can be nourished and reinforced as secure attachments through time together, caring for them, holding rituals or ceremonies, and can also be grieved when lost such as through relocation or environmental catastrophes like fires and floods. What places in nature are you attached to? Have you lost important places in your life?

Biological

Over our vast human history, we have spent nearly all of our evolution in intimate relation with our natural environment. Our senses have evolved to attune to the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and feels in our surrounding world. Only in a very short recent window of human history have we been severed from this historically intimate way of living with nature. The result is an incredible disconnect and loss of sight of our place in our ecosystem, along with increased stress and overstimulation navigating our modern world. The disconnect contributes to the “loneliness epidemic” experienced by many. Increasingly people fail to be attuned to the kinship of the world around us, leading not only to loneliness, but also perpetuation of choices that harm ourselves and our home. Returning to the environment we have evolved to live in puts our biological being at home and subsequently reduces stress (Ulrich, 1983). Additionally, the modern trend of seeking to remedy all discomforts has led many to experience difficulty with distress tolerance in their daily lives. Immersing in nature provides challenges to face, whether its navigating difficult terrain, managing weather and temperature changes, foraging for food, finding/building shelter, or managing risks of predators, bugs, or poisonous plants. Through challenging experiences people build psychological resilience. Embracing safe enough challenges in nature can help rebuild resilience and self confidence to face life’s difficulties. How do you view your place in the ecosystem? What experiences in nature have built your resilience?

Spiritual

Regardless of religious or spiritual beliefs and backgrounds, experiences in nature provide a common experience, that of awe. When we see a beautiful sight, or are surrounded by the thriving network of the natural world, we often experience a feeling of something greater than ourselves. When we are tuned in to nature, our awareness focuses on the interwoven quality of our self and our natural world, promoting a sense of spiritual wellbeing (Kamitsis & Francis, 2013). This may include an expansive feeling of abundance within the self and the world. Some people notice how they stop feeling the need to rush when they are immersed in nature. We may also choose to foster awareness of how connection to the natural world is part of our ancestral roots and has shaped the beliefs and stories of our ancestors who survived in these environments and passed down their views through the generations. Think of how you react when you see an unusual plant or animal in your environment. Do you get excited to share this with others? There is an intrinsic feeling of awe to see how our world works. What have been some awe-inspiring moments for you in nature? What role does nature play in your spirituality?

Sources

The Center for Nature Informed Therapy. https://www.natureinformedtherapy.org/

Atchley R.A., Strayer D.L., Atchley P. (2012). Creativity in the Wild: Improving Creative Reasoning through Immersion in Natural Settings. PLoS ONE 7(12).

Kamitsis, I., & Francis, A. J. (2013). Spirituality mediates the relationship between engagement with nature and psychological wellbeing. Journal of environmental psychology, 36, 136-143.

Kaplan, R. & Kaplan, S. (1989). The experience of nature. A psychological perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Kaplan S. (1995). The restorative benefits of nature: Toward an integrative framework. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 15, 169-182.

Lewicka M. (2011). Place attachment: How far have we come in the last 40 years? Journal of Environmental Psychology, 31(3), 207-230.

Ulrich R. S. (1983). Aesthetic and affective response to natural environment. In Altman I., Wohlwill J. F. (Eds.), Behavior and the natural environment (pp. 85–125). New York, NY: Springer.