Sustainable Living for a Sustainable Earth: From an Education for Sustainable Development towards an Education for Sustainable Living Werner Sattmann-Frese A thesis submitted to the University of Western Sydney for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy August 2005 i © 2005 All rights reserved Photo by Simon Wolff Long standing and passionate amateur photographer based in Sydney Australia, his photographs will be featured on a forthcoming web site, specialising in 'Scenic' and 'artistic' range of photos which will be on sale over the web. He can be contacted by e-mail at [email protected] Simon is currently studying to become a Somatic Psychotherapist. ii Acknowledgments The creation of this study would not have been possible without the qualified and passionate support of other people. I wish to express my deep gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Stuart Hill, for his untiring professional and emotional support during the last six years. I also feel indebted to Dr John Cameron for his unwavering dedication to Social Ecology at the University of Western Sydney, and for his support in upgrading this project to PhD candidature. Furthermore, I am thankful to Kathy Adams, to the other academics at Social Ecology, and to my fellow travellers for maintaining a stimulating and sane environment within an unsustainable modern culture. I would also like to express my gratefulness to the research participants for their insights into their struggles with becoming more sustainable people and to Associate Professor Daniella Tilbury at Macquarie University, Sydney, for her suggestion to integrate the depth psychology perspectives on ecological deterioration with the change strategies employed in the various approaches to environmental education. Judith McCreath, Roy Garner, and Annie James deserve recognition for their assistance in editing this thesis and/or associated brochures and conference material, and my clients and supervisees for sharing with me their ideas, and experiences, and struggles with becoming more sustainable humans. Last, but not least, I am grateful to my wife Lisa and my sons Leon and Julian for supporting me during the long gestation period of this thesis, and to my friends Claus Bargmann and Norbert Schrauth for their support and challenging questions. iii Statement of authentification The work presented in this thesis is, to the best of my knowledge and belief, original except as acknowledged in the text. I hereby declare that I have not submitted this material, either in full or in part, for a degree at this or any other institution. …………………………………………………………. (Signature) iv Claims to originality The world is a big place where many scholars publish research in many different languages. It is thus difficult to be certain that knowledge and concepts similar to the ones that have been generated as part of my inquiry are not also being developed by other people working in similar fields of inquiry. Considering this, readers can be assured that great care has been taken to ensure that the topics claimed as original knowledge have not been formulated by other scholars. Many searches of key topics in library catalogues and on the Internet, both in English and German, suggest that the following procedures and concepts that can be claimed as original are the: • structured inquiry into the views of health professionals on issues concerning ecological deterioration and sustainable living • description of eco-self-consciousness development as a six-stage process that is unfolding in a range of psychological disciplines and environmental change practices • description of sustainability in terms of interrelated but also distinct features of physio- emotional, psychosocial, environmental, and institutional sustainability • investigation of interrelated and analogical aspects of unsustainability in terms of the psychological metaphors: separation, pollution, exhaustion, and growth/excess • description of key aspects of terrorism as predictable manifestations of the schizoid character condition. Readers who have found or developed similar ideas and research findings are encouraged to alert me to this work by contacting me on [email protected]. Doing so will ensure that due acknowledgment will be given to the authors in future printouts and publications of this thesis. v Contents CONTENTS ............................................................................................................................................................... 1 LIST OF TABLES .................................................................................................................................................... 3 LIST OF FIGURES .................................................................................................................................................. 4 ABSTRACT ............................................................................................................................................................... 5 INTRODUCTION: THE NEED FOR THIS STUDY......................................................................................... 7 CHAPTER 1 THE PROJECT ..........................................................................................................................18 1.1 MAKING SENSE OF OUR ECOLOGICAL CRISES ..........................................................................................18 1.2 AIMS AND RESEARCH QUESTIONS...............................................................................................................21 1.3 LIMITATIONS OF THIS STUDY .....................................................................................................................22 1.4 METHODOLOGY ..........................................................................................................................................23 1.5 TOWARDS AN ALTERNATIVE APPROACH ....................................................................................................32 1.6 RESEARCH APPROACHES EMPLOYED IN THIS STUDY .................................................................................34 1.7 RESEARCH METHODS..................................................................................................................................38 1.8 PHILOSOPHICAL BACKGROUND ..................................................................................................................39 1.9 PSYCHOLOGICAL BACKGROUND ................................................................................................................47 CHAPTER 2 RESEARCH DATA ...................................................................................................................53 2.1 QUESTION 1: WHAT DO PEOPLE ASSOCIATE WITH THE NOTION OF ENVIRONMENT? ...............................53 2.2 QUESTION 2: WHAT DO PEOPLE ASSOCIATE WITH THE NOTION OF HARMING THE ENVIRONMENT? .......54 2.3 QUESTION 3: WHAT ARE THE CONNECTIONS BETWEENS PEOPLE’S FEELINGS, EMOTIONS, AND THEIR BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS THE ENVIRONMENT?........................................................................................................57 2.4 QUESTION 4: HOW HAVE PEOPLE LEARNED ABOUT THE DETERIORATION OF THE ENVIRONMENT AND WHAT HAS INFLUENCED THEM TO CHANGE THEIR PERCEPTION OF AND BEHAVIOUR TOWARDS THE ENVIRONMENT? .....................................................................................................................................................60 2.5 QUESTION 5: WHAT DO PEOPLE ASSOCIATE WITH THE NOTIONS OF SUSTAINABILITY AND SUSTAINABLE LIVING, AND WHICH EXPERIENCES, IF ANY, HAVE ENHANCED THEIR ABILITY TO LIVE SUSTAINABLY? ...........65 2.6 DATA ANALYSIS ..........................................................................................................................................68 CHAPTER 3 NOTIONS ON CONSCIOUSNESS AND SELF ...................................................................71 3.1 NOTIONS ON CONSCIOUSNESS ....................................................................................................................71 3.2 NOTIONS OF ‘SELF’ .....................................................................................................................................77 3.3 ASPECTS OF EGO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS ....................................................................................................81 CHAPTER 4 MANIPULATED ECO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS (STAGE ONE)..................................84 4.1 4.1 PROBLEMS WITH DISTINGUISHING BETWEEN BEHAVIOURIST AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ...........84 4.2 THE NATURE OF MANIPULATED ECO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS .....................................................................85 4.3 BEHAVIOURAL TECHNOLOGIES USED TO FOSTER SUSTAINABLE BEHAVIOUR ..........................................86 4.4 BENEFITS OF BEHAVIOURIST INTERVENTIONS ...........................................................................................88 CHAPTER 5 LEARNED ECO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS (STAGE TWO)............................................89 5.1 COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY ...........................................................................................................................89 5.2 LEARNING ECO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS .......................................................................................................89 5.3 BENEFITS OF AN APPROACH BASED ON COGNITION AND LEARNING .........................................................91 CHAPTER 6 PARTICIPATORY ECO-SELF CONSCIOUSNESS (STAGE THREE).........................92 6.1 EDUCATION