Natural Health.... you can't have healthy people on an unhealthy planet. It's that simple!

A raft of neologisms has emerged in recent years to describe particular types of anxiety connected to the environmental, climate and extinction crisis.

Nature deficit disorder is symptomatic of an interior-bound lifestyle.  Eco-anxiety describes the powerlessness felt by people when they think of the consequences of climate change.  Extinction anxiety is driven by fear of the sixth mass extinction in the earth’s history which is occurring now.

These are very real human responses and cannot be disregarded by our profession.
According to Roszak (1995) human psychopathology increases the more we find ourselves distanced from the environment.

Research in clinical epidemiology underlines the importance of animals, plants, landscapes and natural environments in human health and well-being.

There are social and psychological components to many cases of substance abuse, eating disorders, type 2 diabetes, chronic fatigue syndrome and obesity.  The increase in allergies, auto-immune disorders, chronic fatigue, obesity, substance abuse and addictions is mirrored by anxiety, depression, sleep and eating disorders, phobias and stress.

Kidner (2007) ascribed increasing anxiety and depression to growing individualization and materialism.

Wider recognition of mental health and the acknowledgement of physical and mental comorbidities have led to a meteoric rise in diagnosed psychological disorders and  conditions.  The pharmaceutical industry has responded with psychiatric drugs.

There is speculation that misdiagnosis has contributed to the misuse of prescriptive antidepressants and antipsychotics which has been inimical to patients in need of counselling and psychotherapy.

What we need is a "Harvest for the World".



References

1. Roszak, T., Gomes, M., and Kanner, A., "Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth, healing the mind," (1995) Sierra Club Books, San Francisco and Crown Publishing Group, New York.

2. Kidner, D. (2007) "Depression and the natural world: towards a critical ecology of distress, Critical Psychology 19, 123-146.  

3. The Isley Brothers, (1976) "Harvest for the World", Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC.