Kamalamani - Therapist and mentor in Bishopston, Bristol
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Reflections on ecopsychology
Kamalamani, December 2009
“When we speak of nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe,” (Henri Matisse).
When my brother and I signed up as members of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Amnesty International in our early teens, I guess we were both cross and concerned about the state of the world and above all, wanted to do something. I knew when I was 14 that I would work in Africa and I knew I would teach in some form. Throughout my twenties, I was fortunate to work in several countries across sub Saharan Africa and in Bangladesh, in a sustainable development role. I have also taught in many different contexts (university lecture halls, a variety of places across Africa, school class rooms and Buddhist shrine rooms). Twenty five years on, I still feel cross and concerned about the state of the world and still want to do something, though perhaps I’m now a little more disillusioned and at the same time, more realistic. Most importantly, in my mind, I am more at home with my own peccadilloes and motivations and am a little clearer - some of the time at least - about the potential effect (helpful and unhelpful) that I have in and on the world.
Working on small enterprise development projects in Africa was an amazing experience. It was rewarding, shocking, fascinating, sobering and challenging (emotionally and physically). I loved my encounters with the local people I worked with. I learnt such a lot about working with people and working with myself. I really had to tune in and watch and listen, and watch and listen, and watch and listen. I learnt a lot about difference; cultural difference, climatic difference, being in a different tropic, with different insects - all sorts of differences. I was shaken to my roots in witnessing extreme poverty. My existing value system was seriously called into question. I learnt to laugh at myself more, I realised how often I expect things to go to plan, my plan, and my own Englishness.
What amazes me - it amazed me at the time, and it continues to amaze me - is how devoid both my undergraduate and postgraduate training were, in failing to prepare in each us the skills needed working in the field, in a development context. During my M.Sc. we studied everything from international political economy, the injustices of the world trade system, micro economics, to endless theories of development and underdevelopment. What we failed to study was anything to do with human and relational dynamics, people skills, the important of emotional intelligence, or our own reflexive capacity, as future project managers, policy makers, researchers etc. I remember then being reminded of the poem of Max Ehrman:
“I journeyed from university to university, and I saw everywhere the past rebuilt before the eyes of young men and young women - Egypt, Greece, Rome; language, architecture, laws - saw the earth and sky explained, and the habits of the body -
Everywhere chairs of this and that, largely endowed.
But nowhere saw I a chair of the human heart.”
In working in a development role, I often experienced a similar phenomenon; the danger that development work can be driven by its workers ‘doing things to’ (and for) others, often with an over-emphasis upon technical content, and lack of emotional intelligence or effective people skills. Worst still, people can be simply categorized as a unit of ‘social capital’ rather than be treated as real, living, breathing, human beings. Of course, this is a debate that has been going on in development since the 70s, if not before, with a notable landmark being Paulo Freire’s notion of ‘conscientization’; the process of contacting and connecting with your own thoughts and values, rather than accepting the oppressive beliefs of the dominant conscience (so, in development terms, those who were traditionally seen as passive ‘recipients’ of aid becoming more active, empowered participants in the development process in Freire’s work). I am reminded of a quote from a book I am reading by Wendy Harcourt:
“Talk about the actual experience of pain, pleasure, strain, sexuality, birth, health and disease is rare in development policies. These issues are side issues to ‘macro’ discussions on trade, finance, and economic growth, yet embodied experience of women and men is at the core of what it means to live through what ‘development’ imposes on people” (Harcourt 2009: 5).
For me, working in a development role meant a pretty constant process of reflection upon my own motivations, expectations, and the myths that had enticed me into this work. It soon became clear that I wouldn’t be single-handedly saving the world! Shucks. I often felt uneasy about my role, my relative wealth, my privileged education and the advantages of having fairly white skin. I also felt very appreciative of the people I worked with - in the UK and overseas - the very often creative work we did, the things that went really well and the relationships that were built over time.
In my early thirties, for a myriad of reasons, my work shifted from working on overseas projects to working back in the UK. One of the most important factors in this was reaching the point at which I felt ready to train as a therapist. Years before in my early twenties, I had known that I would do therapy training ‘when I was old enough’. ‘Old enough’ for me was when I turned thirty. I had been changed through practising Buddhism and meditation for the previous six years, through working in Africa and through my father having recently been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
For the past six years I have been working as a therapist in Bristol. I continue to learn such a lot in working with people in this context. Still really tuning in and watching and listening, and watching and listening and watching and listening. In the last few years I have become increasingly interested in and oriented to working with clients in an embodied way, drawing upon my experience and practice of meditation and healing and energy work. I have also been gladdened to have stumbled across ‘ecopsychology’. When I came across ecopsychology I intuitively knew that it was the bit of the jigsaw that had been missing in my own work as a development worker. I didn’t actually know what it meant, but knew that it was an important link in assimilating my experience of ‘doing development’ and, in a sense, in the continuing work I do in ‘doing (or being?) development’, albeit in a very different form and context and in the Global North, rather than the Global South.
So I looked up the meaning of ecopsychology, and rather liked Rosak’s definition:
1) The emerging synthesis of ecology and psychology. 2) The skillful application of ecological insights to the practice of psychotherapy. 3) The discovery of our emotional bond with the planet. 4) Defining “sanity” as if the whole world mattered (Roszak 1994: 8).
Coming across ecopsychology has been invaluable to me in making sense of the deepening rationale for my work as a therapist and the context/field/web of connections in which this work takes place; in which the therapeutic relationship is held and active. A central aspect of ecopsychology is the healing and harmonising of humankind’s relationship to the earth and with other beings and life forms on earth. The central dynamic within this seems to be the deeply synergistic relationship between the wellbeing of each and every human and other than human being and the well being of the planet itself. Given the current global situation we face, we humans (particularly many of us humans of the Global North), can no longer afford to act as though our actions are trackless, without consequence and that we are a supreme species who can harness and control nature purely to meet our own needs.
Facing the current crisis (or more aptly, crises) can be deeply challenging. Being human together and facing the current crisis without falling into blame, judgment, overwhelm, hedonism, acute anxiety, immobilised depression and/or denial is a skyscraper high tall order. On quite a basic level, not acting from the basis of a consumerist ‘I can buy it, therefore it’s mine,’ attitude seriously goes against the mainstream grain. The current global situation calls for quite an integrated and integrating state of compassion for self and others (human and other than human) and wisdom in knowing what to do and how to be, without jumping to quick fixes and with some sense of urgency of response. In my mind, the crises we currently face also require us to carry on living, living as well and as fully as we can, in terms of engaging with life, with each other, and with our environment, rather than being paralysed by fear, guilt, anger or despair. Living well can takes all sorts of forms: living consciously, communicating cleanly, relating deeply, doing business ethically, and living with an awareness of the interconnected reality of our link with all that lives. In my mind, living well is also about the being, rather than just the doing aspects of our lives. In remembering this, I’ll end with one of my favourite poem by Pablo Neruda:
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve
And we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
Let’s not speak in any language;
Let’s stop for one second,
And not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
Without rush, without engines;
We would all be together
In a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
Would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt
Would look at this hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
Wars with gas, wars with fire,
Victories with no survivors,
Would put on clean clothes
And walk about with their brothers
In the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
With total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single minded
About keeping our lives moving,
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence
Might interrupt this sadness
Of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will go.
References
Harcourt, W (2009) Body politics in development: critical debates in gender and development. Zed Books
Roszak, T (1994) Definition of ecopsychology. The Ecopsychology Newsletter 1: 8, p8.
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Kamalamani, December 2009
“When we speak of nature it is wrong to forget that we are ourselves a part of nature. We ought to view ourselves with the same curiosity and openness with which we study a tree, the sky or a thought, because we too are linked to the entire universe,” (Henri Matisse).
When my brother and I signed up as members of Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Amnesty International in our early teens, I guess we were both cross and concerned about the state of the world and above all, wanted to do something. I knew when I was 14 that I would work in Africa and I knew I would teach in some form. Throughout my twenties, I was fortunate to work in several countries across sub Saharan Africa and in Bangladesh, in a sustainable development role. I have also taught in many different contexts (university lecture halls, a variety of places across Africa, school class rooms and Buddhist shrine rooms). Twenty five years on, I still feel cross and concerned about the state of the world and still want to do something, though perhaps I’m now a little more disillusioned and at the same time, more realistic. Most importantly, in my mind, I am more at home with my own peccadilloes and motivations and am a little clearer - some of the time at least - about the potential effect (helpful and unhelpful) that I have in and on the world.
Working on small enterprise development projects in Africa was an amazing experience. It was rewarding, shocking, fascinating, sobering and challenging (emotionally and physically). I loved my encounters with the local people I worked with. I learnt such a lot about working with people and working with myself. I really had to tune in and watch and listen, and watch and listen, and watch and listen. I learnt a lot about difference; cultural difference, climatic difference, being in a different tropic, with different insects - all sorts of differences. I was shaken to my roots in witnessing extreme poverty. My existing value system was seriously called into question. I learnt to laugh at myself more, I realised how often I expect things to go to plan, my plan, and my own Englishness.
What amazes me - it amazed me at the time, and it continues to amaze me - is how devoid both my undergraduate and postgraduate training were, in failing to prepare in each us the skills needed working in the field, in a development context. During my M.Sc. we studied everything from international political economy, the injustices of the world trade system, micro economics, to endless theories of development and underdevelopment. What we failed to study was anything to do with human and relational dynamics, people skills, the important of emotional intelligence, or our own reflexive capacity, as future project managers, policy makers, researchers etc. I remember then being reminded of the poem of Max Ehrman:
“I journeyed from university to university, and I saw everywhere the past rebuilt before the eyes of young men and young women - Egypt, Greece, Rome; language, architecture, laws - saw the earth and sky explained, and the habits of the body -
Everywhere chairs of this and that, largely endowed.
But nowhere saw I a chair of the human heart.”
In working in a development role, I often experienced a similar phenomenon; the danger that development work can be driven by its workers ‘doing things to’ (and for) others, often with an over-emphasis upon technical content, and lack of emotional intelligence or effective people skills. Worst still, people can be simply categorized as a unit of ‘social capital’ rather than be treated as real, living, breathing, human beings. Of course, this is a debate that has been going on in development since the 70s, if not before, with a notable landmark being Paulo Freire’s notion of ‘conscientization’; the process of contacting and connecting with your own thoughts and values, rather than accepting the oppressive beliefs of the dominant conscience (so, in development terms, those who were traditionally seen as passive ‘recipients’ of aid becoming more active, empowered participants in the development process in Freire’s work). I am reminded of a quote from a book I am reading by Wendy Harcourt:
“Talk about the actual experience of pain, pleasure, strain, sexuality, birth, health and disease is rare in development policies. These issues are side issues to ‘macro’ discussions on trade, finance, and economic growth, yet embodied experience of women and men is at the core of what it means to live through what ‘development’ imposes on people” (Harcourt 2009: 5).
For me, working in a development role meant a pretty constant process of reflection upon my own motivations, expectations, and the myths that had enticed me into this work. It soon became clear that I wouldn’t be single-handedly saving the world! Shucks. I often felt uneasy about my role, my relative wealth, my privileged education and the advantages of having fairly white skin. I also felt very appreciative of the people I worked with - in the UK and overseas - the very often creative work we did, the things that went really well and the relationships that were built over time.
In my early thirties, for a myriad of reasons, my work shifted from working on overseas projects to working back in the UK. One of the most important factors in this was reaching the point at which I felt ready to train as a therapist. Years before in my early twenties, I had known that I would do therapy training ‘when I was old enough’. ‘Old enough’ for me was when I turned thirty. I had been changed through practising Buddhism and meditation for the previous six years, through working in Africa and through my father having recently been diagnosed with a chronic illness.
For the past six years I have been working as a therapist in Bristol. I continue to learn such a lot in working with people in this context. Still really tuning in and watching and listening, and watching and listening and watching and listening. In the last few years I have become increasingly interested in and oriented to working with clients in an embodied way, drawing upon my experience and practice of meditation and healing and energy work. I have also been gladdened to have stumbled across ‘ecopsychology’. When I came across ecopsychology I intuitively knew that it was the bit of the jigsaw that had been missing in my own work as a development worker. I didn’t actually know what it meant, but knew that it was an important link in assimilating my experience of ‘doing development’ and, in a sense, in the continuing work I do in ‘doing (or being?) development’, albeit in a very different form and context and in the Global North, rather than the Global South.
So I looked up the meaning of ecopsychology, and rather liked Rosak’s definition:
1) The emerging synthesis of ecology and psychology. 2) The skillful application of ecological insights to the practice of psychotherapy. 3) The discovery of our emotional bond with the planet. 4) Defining “sanity” as if the whole world mattered (Roszak 1994: 8).
Coming across ecopsychology has been invaluable to me in making sense of the deepening rationale for my work as a therapist and the context/field/web of connections in which this work takes place; in which the therapeutic relationship is held and active. A central aspect of ecopsychology is the healing and harmonising of humankind’s relationship to the earth and with other beings and life forms on earth. The central dynamic within this seems to be the deeply synergistic relationship between the wellbeing of each and every human and other than human being and the well being of the planet itself. Given the current global situation we face, we humans (particularly many of us humans of the Global North), can no longer afford to act as though our actions are trackless, without consequence and that we are a supreme species who can harness and control nature purely to meet our own needs.
Facing the current crisis (or more aptly, crises) can be deeply challenging. Being human together and facing the current crisis without falling into blame, judgment, overwhelm, hedonism, acute anxiety, immobilised depression and/or denial is a skyscraper high tall order. On quite a basic level, not acting from the basis of a consumerist ‘I can buy it, therefore it’s mine,’ attitude seriously goes against the mainstream grain. The current global situation calls for quite an integrated and integrating state of compassion for self and others (human and other than human) and wisdom in knowing what to do and how to be, without jumping to quick fixes and with some sense of urgency of response. In my mind, the crises we currently face also require us to carry on living, living as well and as fully as we can, in terms of engaging with life, with each other, and with our environment, rather than being paralysed by fear, guilt, anger or despair. Living well can takes all sorts of forms: living consciously, communicating cleanly, relating deeply, doing business ethically, and living with an awareness of the interconnected reality of our link with all that lives. In my mind, living well is also about the being, rather than just the doing aspects of our lives. In remembering this, I’ll end with one of my favourite poem by Pablo Neruda:
Keeping Quiet
Now we will count to twelve
And we will all keep still.
For once on the face of the earth,
Let’s not speak in any language;
Let’s stop for one second,
And not move our arms so much.
It would be an exotic moment
Without rush, without engines;
We would all be together
In a sudden strangeness.
Fishermen in the cold sea
Would not harm whales
And the man gathering salt
Would look at this hurt hands.
Those who prepare green wars,
Wars with gas, wars with fire,
Victories with no survivors,
Would put on clean clothes
And walk about with their brothers
In the shade, doing nothing.
What I want should not be confused
With total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.
If we were not so single minded
About keeping our lives moving,
And for once could do nothing,
Perhaps a huge silence
Might interrupt this sadness
Of never understanding ourselves
And of threatening ourselves with death.
Perhaps the earth can teach us
As when everything seems dead
And later proves to be alive.
Now I’ll count up to twelve
And you keep quiet and I will go.
References
Harcourt, W (2009) Body politics in development: critical debates in gender and development. Zed Books
Roszak, T (1994) Definition of ecopsychology. The Ecopsychology Newsletter 1: 8, p8.
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