Arts and health as an ecopsychological practice: Developing a conversation

What place does therapy have in a world that is facing an ecological emergency? Once we come to see ourselves as cells of the whole system that we call the environment, it becomes impossible to ignore the well-being of the planet as we work to improve our clients’ well-being and our own. Bernie Neville, client-centred ecopsychologist, explains to Helen Varney, public health sociologist, how therapy can be imagined in a larger context, locating it within the ecological way of thinking. For the ecopsychologist and for the sociologist too the experience of the powerful, shared moment in therapy is one that is shared with the wider human community and with the universe itself. If we are looking for evidence of the benefit of arts and health for individuals and their communities, we should look more deeply into such experiences.