Nature-Based Expressive Arts Therapy

EXPRESSIVE ARTS AND ECOTHERAPY 57

TABLE 1.1 COMPARING THERAPEUTIC PARADIGMS

Traditional

psychotherapy

Nature‑based

expressive arts

(NBEA) therapy

Cause of

psychological

suffering

• Problems of
  thinking


• Chemical
  imbalances in the
  brain


• Heredity


• Stress and trauma


• Adverse
  childhood
  experiences

Yes, and:

• Disconnection from
  the web of life


• A natural stress/grief
  response to alarms of
  our time


• Attempting to
  maintain an
  unsustainable lifestyle


• Alienation from
  supportive internal
  and environmental
  resources
  Language • Pathological


• Anthropocentric


• Anesthetic


• Resource-based


• Arts-informed


• Ecocentric


• Aesthetic
  Location of problem • In the individual
  or human system

Perhaps...and:

• In the broken
  relationship between
  the human and more-
  than-human world
  Theoretical
  characteristics


• Anthropocentric


• Based in Western
  European
  philosophy and
  psychology


• Rooted in
  positivist thought


• Biocentric (extending
  inherent value to all
  living things)


• Informed by
  indigenous
  perspectives and deep
  ecology


• Intermodality