Wild Lands Advocate The Alberta Wilderness Association Journal December 2003 • Vol.11, No. 6 http://AlbertaWilderness.ca
[email protected] FOCUS SHARPENS ON PSYCHOLOGICAL, SPIRITUAL VALUES OF WILDERNESS By Andy Marshall The ancient understanding of the physical, The word ecopsychology was coined by California State mental, emotional and spiritual well-being University professor Theodore Roszak in his 1992 book The from human contact with natural wilderness Voice of the Earth, which examines our alienation from the natural blossoms again, giving conservationists a world and how we can reconnect with it. The field of potentially powerful impetus in their quest for ecopsychology considers many aspects of the human/nature more protected land. relationship. Among the varied colours and shapes of The word popped up more than a decade later in the cause of this understanding is a concept called conservation. "Ecopsychology can ... inform and inspire ecopsychology, which is gaining respectability in some academic environmental activism," states British Columbia clinical circles but still relatively little known. psychologist and psychology professor John Scull in an article on reconnecting with nature in a recent edition of the Canadian INSIDE magazine Encompass. While views in the article do not A Cows And Fish Story necessarily reflect the official government position, funding for it By Lorne Fitch ................................................................................ 5 was provided by Environment Canada and Health Canada, giving it some