Beyond the reality principle - ecological conception of sanity

Sierra, March-April, 1993 by Theodore Roszak

It might be too much to expect psychotherapists to pay attention to the ideas of an outsider like Shepard, but his attempt to ecologize psychology has been echoed within the profession itself by as renowned a figure as Jungian analyst James Hillman. Also writing in the early 1980s, Hillman conjectured that the environmental degradation we see around us in the external world might be studied by psychiatrists in much the same way that they examine disturbed dreams or sexual fantasies--as projections of psychopathic symptoms. He urged that "asbestos and food additives, acid rain and tampons, insecticides and pharmaceuticals, car exhausts and sweeteners, televisions and ions" be brought within the province of therapeutic analysis: "Psychology always advances its consciousness by means of pathologized revelations, through the underworld of our anxiety. Our ecological fears announce that things are where the soul now claims psychological attention."

But old orthodoxies die hard. In a recent interview with John O'Neil, president of the California School of Professional Psychology, I asked what part our relations with the natural environment play in mainstream psychiatric training and practice. "That's an easy one," O'Neil answered. "None." His assessment is borne out by the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The DSM is the American Psychiatric Association's official listing of every recognized mental illness. As the canonical authority for all legal, forensic, and insurance uses of psychology, it serves as a convenient baseline for the discussion of sanity and madness as they are understood by the most respected authorities in our society. Though we live in a world haunted by the prospect of environmental calamity, the DSM makes only one reference to the nonhuman world--a listing for the neurosis called "zoophilia," having sex with animals.

Troubled by the environmental disconnection of their profession, a number of adventurous psychologists are at last seeking to create ecologically relevant forms of therapy. Their motivation is as much a matter of conscience as of theoretical curiosity. Just as lawyers have been drawn to environmental law, and teachers have introduced environmental curricula into our schools, so psychologists are (however belatedly) responding to the influence of the environmental movement. "Ecopsychology" is the name most often used for this growing body of theory and practice, but others have been suggested: psycho-ecology, eco-therapy, global therapy, green therapy, earth-centered therapy, re-earthing .... The neologisms are no more euphonious than the term "psychoanalysis" was when first proposed, but by whatever name, the goal is the same: to expand the framework of psychiatric thought to include the natural environment. The history of psychiatry might be told as just such an ongoing effort to broaden the context of analysis: from the individual to the family to the workplace to the society and culture at large. Each of these extensions has brought with it new insights for diagnosis and treatment; each has also deepened the public's understanding of human nature. Ecopsychologists believe that the time has come to define sanity within a biospheric context.