Why the Outdoors Informs my Practice

Originally published on Instagram (@ecofriendlytherapist)

Durga is a psychodynamic psychotherapist and nature-based practitoner. In this article, she writes about how the outdoors facilitates depth and what she notices as a therapist who relies on nature as a creative medium for self-exploration.

Fern represents rhizomatic growth; here roots emerge at varying paces. This represents how the unconscious seeks awareness into conscious living

NON-LINEAR IS NATURAL

‘Rhizomatic growth’ refers to the emphasis of presence, where collaboration is seen as ongoing and creative and non-linearity redefines the capacity to grow and evolve.

I believe insight-oriented dialogue is tethered to staying in contact while traversing each realms of consciousness.This gives room to let free associating point towards depth and capacity authentically.

Like a rhizome, the capacity to evolve either stalls or moves in another direction where space and resources are, before acclimatising to harsher psychic landscapes.

SITTING IN THE MUD

To sit with it brings awareness of resistance, incapacity, tolerance or fear of pain.

Nature points towards the relevance of why staying connected to our inner world provides spaciousness and the need to digest what is painful.Presence in therapy as is sitting with nature allows for us to meet who we are inside in relation to the environment (and others who are a part of it).

Presence here is bodily and grounded in knowing the self in a deeply intimate way rather than chasing better.

WHEN MOTHER NATURE CALLS

Nature-based practices suggests grounding by asking oneself to find their feet in a pace or rhythm, a natural element or a somatic experience that is in the ‘here and now’.Who we are is how we present ourselves through our desire to be still, to move, to feel heavy or light.

Seeing ourselves in a natural element reminds us of why relationships and inteconnections are vital for reparation, recovery and renewal.We are the sea and sand, the pebbles in a river, the waves in a storm and the breeze wafting through the bamboo. As a part of the reading, I am sharing five guiding ecological journal questions from SNTI's training program you can sit with to inform your own daily practice through presence and reflection. 1. What is your earliest memory of nature? and what formative experiences come to mind as a child and then as an adult?

2. What influences about nature do you pick up from TV, school, books, stories?

   
   

3. When & where do you feel safest in nature?

4. What animals or other living beings do you like the most? the least? Why?

5. How do you feel about this moment in time in our human and planetary evolution? What are the devastating and creative experiences you are most saddened or grateful to witness?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Durga (she/her) is a psychodynamic psychotherapist and nature-based practitioner based in India. She re-imagines therapeutic care being informed by insight-oriented praxis in integration with nature. To know more about her approach, read here.