and managed care. To the extent that nature therapy is slowly coming
back into vogue, the Swedes have probably done the most to apply
science to the field.
The journey of Johan Ottosson seems a good place to start. On a
cold winter day twenty-three years ago, Ottosson was riding his bike
to work in southern Sweden when he was swiped by a car. He
launched many feet through the air, landing headfirst on a rock. He
would spend the next six months in a hospital by the North Sea
struggling to regain basic skills (he would never read or write without
assistance again). It was a miserable, terrifying existence. Although
the doctors and therapists were helpful, what Ottosson says really
pulled him out of despair and a deep depression were the land and sea
nearby.
“I just felt strongly that I wanted to be outside, where I feel the
best,” he recalled when I went to see him in southern Sweden. “I had a
strong relationship with the stones. There is this theory that if a
person is in bad shape and low energy, you can’t be with other people
too much. But you can be with animals, plants, stones and water.”
Ottosson became so convinced by the healing power of nature that he
pursued a doctorate in the topic at the Work Environment, Economy
and Environmental Psychology Department at the Swedish University
of Agricultural Sciences.
His compelling dissertation includes more details about the span
of his recovery, written in the third person. At first, he could only find
comfort in rocks. “It was as though the stone spoke to him: ‘I have
been here forever and will always be here; my entire value lies in my
existence and whatever you are or do is of no concern to me.’ . . . The
feelings calmed him and filled him with harmony. His own situation
became less important. The stone had been there long before the first
human being had walked past.” As he got better, he turned his
attention to the ocean waves, and then, gradually, to vegetation,
particularly oak trees.