Jamie Bird

Jamie Bird

The edited book Environmental Arts Therapy (Heginworth and Nash 2019) is a particularly timely publication because of how news of climate change and biodiversity loss has increasingly become a mainstream item for consideration. It might be argued that it is what will define this time in human history, so anything that addresses the practical, political, social, psychological, or spiritual components of global heating and environmental degradation is to be welcome. From an art therapy perspective, especially welcome are those interventions that address the emotional consequences of these unprecedented and monumental events.

The main impetus for the creation of this book was to bring together ideas and practices to emerge from the environmental art therapy training programme that has been offered at the London Art Therapy Centre since 2014. A majority of the contributing authors are alumni of that training. The aim of the book is to demonstrate how art and drama therapy that is used out in the natural environment can be applied within different contexts and with different client groups. It can be placed alongside other recent publications on the topic of the arts therapies and their relationship to the natural environment, such as Nature-Based Expressive Arts Therapy (Atkins and Snyder 2018). Perhaps also to earlier, more explicitly psychodynamic works, such as Imagining Animals: Art, Psychotherapy and Primitive States of Mind (Case, 2005). Environmental arts therapy is defined here as‘an arts-based approach to working therapeutically in outdoor spaces and emerges from the creative exchange that has occurred between the ecopsychology movement and the arts therapies professions and communities.’ (Heginworth & Nash, 2019, p.2). To this is added thatthe‘therapeutic combination of the arts and nature, human and other-than-human, is informed by a growing awareness and interest in the work of ecopsychology which considers our interdependency and interrelationship with the Earth’ (ibid p.2). A fundamental principle that underpins ecopsychology, and ecotherapy, and in turn environmental arts therapy, is that there is a need to address the separation that exists within social structures and individual behaviors between the human and the non-human. That separation extends to that between self and other, and parts of self. Ecopsychology seeks to create a reciprocal relationship between the human and the non-human. These are ideas that align with deep ecology (Naess 1990) and transpersonal ecology (Fox 1995), and which emerge frequently throughout this publication.

The book is comprised of twelve chapters, divided into five parts. Part one maps out the shape of environmental arts therapy in literature and within the contemporary history of art therapy as it is practices in the British Isles. Part two integrates the theories of attachment and childhood emotional development into the practice of environmental art therapy. Part three explores notions of the feminine and masculine as they appear within relationships with the natural world. Part four focuses upon the theme of natural yearly cycles and how they relate to psychological processes of change. The final part brings ageing and palliative care into the picture.

At various points in this collection of reports and reflections about environmental art therapy, climate crisis is explicitly addressed. A reconnection with nature is framed as an important counter to alienation and separation between the human and the non-human. This link between connection with nature and positive improvement to wellbeing and greater appreciation of the non-human world is backed up by the research carried out by others (Richardson, Hunt et al. 2019). Climate crisis is less evident in other chapters, but the reference to the value of making connections with the non-human world is strong throughout all the chapters.

The element that might be problematic for some is the frequent expression of the idea that nature is associated most strongly with the feminine. Nature becomes gendered. And whilst this is far from a new or unique perspective, it is important to be aware of both the strengths and the limitations of assigning a human construction such as gender upon the non-human. Whilst there is value in drawing attention to an attitude towards nature that is extractive, exploitative, and aligned to patriarchy, assigning a feminine quality to nature runs the risk of offering a one-dimensional view of the non-human. This is said to draw attention to a critique that can be made of much ecological thinking. There is a failure to achieve a more nuanced perspective in terms of not fully questioning what is assumed when using gendered terms to refer to nature i.e. mother earth or mother nature. It is possible to understand the sentiment behind this thinking: to draw upon what is not logical or rational; to value the emotional, the embodied, and the subjective. What needs questioning is the association of those qualities with one particular gender because of the philosophical problems in making that link (Lloyd, 1993).

There is little in the way of direct reference to issues of diversity within the book. There is though some reference to indigenous beliefs and how these might contribute to the sorts of practices and rituals practices within environmental arts therapies. This should not be taken as a major criticism of the book, but rather a highlighting of the need for environmental thought and practice to widen its scope to incorporate the intersection of ecological and social concerns.

Many Art Therapists will appreciate the reference to attachment and to how natural objects can act as transitional objects. There is a good deal of attention paid to safe ways of working outside. Most of the authors make reference to how they have given thought to how to contain clients and their expressions when working out-of-doors. There are parallels here with taking art therapy into refugee camps and other places of crisis (Lloyd, Press et al. 2018).

This publication adds to the literature about how art therapy can engage with both the physical qualities of natural materials, and the metaphorical qualities of the non-human and how that represents interpersonal and intrapersonal processes. It also adds to ideas about the role of the arts therapies within a collective response to climate crisis. Given the emotive nature of climate change and mass extinction, it is all too easy to lose hope and courage. This important book goes some way to providing some solace, not in the form of seeking mitigation or providing practical solutions, but through showing how art therapy can takes its place amongst other therapeutic responses (Bednarek 2019)as they attempt to prepare, adapt and eventually recover from a changing relationship between the human and non-human.