Mary-Jayne Rust on reconnecting to the rest of nature Mary-Jayne Rust is an art therapist, a Jungian analyst, a feminist psychotherapist and an ecopsychologist. She runs a small private practice seeing individuals in North London, and also gives talks, workshops and courses and seminars in the field of ecopsychology. We spoke recently by Skype, and I started by asking her what exactly is ecopsychology? The first thing to say is that it’s one of those funny questions because you can’t ever give a proper definition because it’s an incredibly diverse and wide field. But this is where I always start because obviously I often get asked that question so I start with. It faces in two directions and the first direction is facing outwards. How can we bring a psychological lens to the collective shift that we’re trying to make towards sustainability? It seems that we have many of the practical solutions to be able to make that shift, and it would also seem, if we listen to the media, that really that arena of politicians and environmentalists, I know that’s got nothing to do with us but actually when you look at the situation it would appear as if we’re really very stuck and it’s very difficult still for people to really face into this very urgent situation and think about it. So I would say we have a psychological problem. I know that’s not the only reason why we’re stuck, but it’s psychological in part and we need some psychological help in many different ways. So an example of that would be: an organisation called Carbon Conversations set up by a psychotherapist called Rosemary Randal, who has gone into lots of different organisations, NGOs, working in the area of sustainability, helping them to think about how we might communicate climate change. It’s not just about ramming dry facts down people’s throats, it’s actually how do you engage people in this very difficult subject. There are many other examples I could give, but I said two directions, so the other direction would be facing inwards. How does the bigger picture affect us personally. This is the first hurdle in a way where people get stuck, because it’s so overwhelming when we face into it. We feel a lot of grief, rage, despair and impotence. Particularly impotence I think, because when people look out there, they just don’t know when to start. Many, many people want to make a difference but they go to where they feel they can make a difference. How can we help people begin to unpack that first of all? Joanna Macy and John Seed were two environmental activists in the 1980s who realised that if you didn’t take account of your feelings in the process of being an activist, you would very likely burn out, because most activists want to stay positive and they are afraid of admitting their sense of, at times oh my God I’m not making a difference, this is all hopeless, and so they would keep it to themselves and that would begin to eat away at them; whereas if collectively we can have safe containers to admit how we’re feeling at times, it’s like a natural cycle. We admit it, we go through a process. We come out the other side feeling empowered. Ecopsychology is also about just generally not to do with the crisis but our human relationship with the non-human world. Psychotherapists concentrate on human to human relationships and our relationship to self. We tend to think if we go to see a therapist we’re going to talk about our personal problems and that’s usually to do with the marriage that’s not working, problems at work etc. Ecopsychology would say that actually we’re all born into a place and into a piece of land. We have very important relationships when we grow up with pets, with trees, with the sea, with the elements. With all manner of things to do with non-human relationships. And this is absolutely essential in terms of making us human. You can see it all over the place, can’t you, that people long for this relationship, because at the moment we’re pretty cut off from it, I would say. It’s not just about our relationship with the non-human world out there, because that teaches us about ourselves as animals. It’s about our animal self. How I relate to my intuition or my instinct. How do I smell my way through life, rather than just relying on my head and trying to make decisions. This is what happens in this culture, isn’t it? We’re taught to use our mind and our thinking and our rationality, but there’s all kinds of other parts of ourselves that are very important in terms of making decisions. Actually, we’re very good at knowing things. We have a great deal of knowledge. But I would say that our culture at the moment is lacking in wisdom. Wisdom comes through head, heart and hand, which you know a great deal about, but through being embodied, through using all aspects of ourselves. It’s when we go out and spend time outdoors that we begin to feel more embodied. In terms of one more piece really about ecopsy... buff.ly/1tY5x…
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 10:05:09 +0000
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