Therapy is by nature wild; but a lot of it at the
moment is rather tame. This book tries to help shift the
balance back towards wildness by showing how therapy can
connect with ecological thinking, seeing each species,
each being, each person inherently and profoundly linked
to each other. Hence we develop a sense of the endless
complexity of existence; and realise that wildness, a
state where things are allowed to happen of their own
accord, is far more deeply complex than domesticated
civilisation, just as a jungle - or even a piece of
wasteland - is more complex than a garden. Psychotherapy
has often opposed the cultural message 'Be in control of
yourself and your environment': it has tried to help
people tolerate the anxiety of not being in control - of
our feelings, our thoughts, our body, our future. But
the struggle over control has now reached inside the
field of therapy itself: the push for management,
measurement and regulation is getting stronger. On a
larger scale it seems that our efforts to control the
world are well on the way to wrecking it through
environmental collapse: the more we try to control
things, the further out of balance we push them.''Wild
Therapy'' offers a context for all this in the
'Neolithic bargain' whereby humans exchanged freedom and
wildness for domestication and safety. Connecting the
attitudes of forager cultures with contemporary Western
understandings of consciousness, it delineates a mode of
being present in all cultures, 'Wild Mind'; and explores
how this can be supported through a 'wild therapy',
bringing together a wide range of already-existing ideas
and practices. It suggests that wild therapy has a role
to play in the work of creating a new culture which can
live well on the earth without damaging ourselves and
other beings. |
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