Ecopsychology in Counseling Certificate

 

Community Activities Spring 2012

                

Upcoming Continuing Education Event: 

 

A Day in the Life

We completed the first weekend of our new Introduction to Ecopsychology in Counseling course on January 28-29, 2012 on the Lewis and Clark Campus. Here’s how one student described her reactions:

“When describing the class to a friend, I explained the phenomenon of noticing myself learn. It was a tangible experience. I could feel my level of awareness rippling outward throughout the weekend and it was fantastic!” 

 

Faculty News

In January, Thomas Doherty was an invited participant at the meeting “Increasing Public Understanding of Climate Risks and Choices: What We Can Learn from Social Science Research and Practice,” a Joint Workshop of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise, University of Michigan and the Union of Concerned Scientists in Ann Arbor. Thomas was named 2012 conference program chair for Div. 34 (Environment) of the American Psychological Association.Thomas also took part in the Yale Climate and Energy Institute Workshop: Scenario Planning for Solar Radiation Management in New Haven in September 2011. Thomas recent publications include being lead author on the paper “The Psychological Impacts of Global Climate Change” published in June 2011 in American Psychologist. Thomas continues as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Ecopsychology. Thomas sees clients in his private practice in a LEED Platinum-rated Green Building in North Portland. He also supervises ecotherapy  activities in a new combined equine and ecotherapy program for Native American adolescents. 

Professor Tod Sloan  has been hosting ‘drop-in dialogue groups’ for environmental and social justice activists as a part of a project that is developing ways to support activists on various levels: personal self-care, group process, organizational strategy, and worldview. An article on these groups will soon be published in the Annual Review of Critical Psychology. Last Fall, Tod co-organized a series of activism and leadership training forum s for the entire Lewis & Clark community.  All of the workshops were very relevant to the challenges of environmental activism, and several drew explicitly on forms of ecopsychology. Tod continues to co-edit the online Journal for Social Action in Counseling and Psychology (jsacp.tumblr.com).

Patricia Hasbach, Adjunct Faculty member, recently co-authored “Rewilding Natural History” published in The Journal of Natural History Education and Experience. Pat was a featured speaker at the City of Eugene’s John H. Baldwin Film & Lecture Series where she spoke on “Ecopsychology: Understanding Our Need for Nature” and offered a similar presentation at the Chautauqua Institution in New York. Pat is completing work on two forthcoming books that will be published by MIT Press in 2012: Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species and The Rediscovery of the Wild

Student Research

Examples of research projects undertaken through the Ecopsychology courses include theses:

• Time-Out in Nature: An Intervention for Problem Shopping by Erin Parker
•  Perception of Connection to the Natural World and Psychological Resilience by Keith Ingulli

Student Activities

Counseling Graduate Keith Ingulli is working on his Psy.D. degree at Pacific University. Leah Shuyler has been active in the development of a new environmental curriculum for the Yoga Calm program for children and will co-author the upcoming book “Yoga Calm for Sustainability: Fostering Hope, Knowledge and Action” expected in Summer of 2012. Current student Jaybird Hall Marmaduke combines her previous degree in applied theology with her studies in ecopsychology as one of the founders of SpiralWorks, a community service organization that hosts seasonal service projects and community centered rituals. Examples of SpiralWorks projects include restoration work in the Pioneer cemetery in late October, pulling invasive English Ivy in Portland’s Forest Park in the spring, and weatherizing homes in the winter.