Benefits of Ecotherapy

Benefits of Ecotherapy

Ecotherapy is therapy that allows healing and growth-nurtured by experiencing and interacting with earth/nature. This type of therapy can be beneficial to all kinds of psychological disorders. A person can experience ecotherapy by just going camping, hiking, hunting, or even fishing. Basically any type of outdoors event can be considered a type of ecotherapy.  

An accredited scientific study conducted at the University of Essex, had a 108 participants walk, run, cycle, and garden.Ninety-four percent of the participants gained in the affective domain2.  They psychologically restorative effects of excursions into the wilderness have been recorded multiple times. Encounters in the outdoors brought a sense of balance and relief from everyday conflicts or stressors. It also made the participants have a feeling of belonging and connection with the world at large. This also made them understand that nature itself was beyond their own control. Many of the individuals began to feel that the connection with nature was a central need in their live1.

Ecotherapy can be beneficial for mentally impaired, handicapped, and as well for those who are not. Ecotherapy is an up and rising type of therapy. God’s creation of Mother Nature has all kinds of benefits that people can receive and experience. Sometimes people just need to sit back and fully take in how powerful nature really can be.

1.Greenway, R. (1995). The wilderness effect and ecopsychology. In T. Roszak, M.

Gomes, & A. Kanner (Eds.), Ecopsychology: Restoring the earth, healing the

mind (pp. 122–135). San Francisco: Sierra Club Books.

2.Mind Publications. (2007). Available from http://www.mind.org.uk