Emerging Trends in Ecotherapy

Ecotherapy expands the scope of counseling beyond family and community systems to recognize the important role that one’s relationship with the natural world can play in health, emotions and identity across the lifespan. Ecotherapy also provides ways for counselors and healthcare providers to utilize nature contacts and connections to promote physical and mental health.

This experiential workshop provides an orientation to the historical background and theoretical approaches associated with ecotherapy. Participants will learn applications of ecotherapy in counseling and healthcare settings and opportunities for integrating ecotherapy practices into their personal and professional lives. We will also survey psychological research regarding human-nature relationships, and conservation behaviors that point to the efficacy of ecotherapy interventions. 

This engaging workshop will be useful to a variety of ecologically conscious health- care practitioners including mental health therapists, counselors, and social workers; and medical and alternative health care providers including nurse practitioners and naturopathic physicians.

Date: Friday, April 20, 2012

Time: 9 a.m. - 4 p.m.

Location: Lewis & Clark Graduate Campus, Conference Center room 107

Instructor: Patricia Hasbach, Ph.D.

Noncredit/CEU: 6 hours, $125 by April 6, $140 after. $40 for students.
Reduced student rate spaces are limited - please register early.

Registration form (PDF) 

About the Instructor

Patricia H. Hasbach, Ph.D. is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) and clinical psychotherapist with a private practice in Eugene, Oregon, and adjunct faculty at Lewis & Clark College and Antioch University Seattle. She received her Ph.D. from the University of Pittsburgh and a post-doctoral M.A. in Ecopsychology from Naropa University. 

As a clinician, Dr. Hasbach incorporates ecopsychological practices with traditional theory to address issues of anxiety, depression, relationship concerns, health-related recovery, and wellness in adults and couples. She has consulted extensively with hospitals, schools, businesses, and community environmental activist groups. She is a member of the Editorial Board of the journal, Ecopsychology and is also associated with the Human Interaction with Nature and Technological Systems Lab (The HINTS Lab) at the University of Washington.

Dr. Hasbach’s academic interests focus on the processes and mechanisms that underlie the development of an environmental sensibility and on what can be called “the rewilding of the human species.”  She has a particular interest in how experiences in the natural world map onto the internal landscape of client reflections and thus enrich the therapeutic process. Her edited volume, Ecopsychology: Science, Totems, and the Technological Species (with Peter Kahn) will be published in July 2012 by MIT Press. She is currently working on a second edited volume for MIT Press titled The Rediscovery of the Wild.