Beneath Our Feet: 
A Dissertation on Ecotherapy in the New Zealand Context
By Michael Apathy

Chapter One: Introduction

This literature review will attempt to answer the question: How do psychotherapists conceptualise human beings‘ relationships with the natural environment, and what are the theoretical and clinical implications of this in the context of Aotearoa? For the most part, this research will involve reviewing literature from the emerging field of ecopsychology, though literature from other fields will also be included. This literature from other fields will be particularly important in attempting to look at implications for the Aotearoa context – a gap in writings in the field of ecopsychology thus far. 

Upon beginning this research I had strong views about the importance of the natural environment, and powerful motivations (both conscious and unconscious) for choosing this topic. My motivations and views, personal, spiritual, and political, have been sources of both bias and insight. To become more conscious and less biased by these factors, as part of the research I wrote a case study focusing on the development of my own relationship with nature. Unfortunately this publically available version of this dissertation will not include this personal information, in order to protect my privacy. 

Chapter two will outline the methodology used in this research. The use of modified systematic literature reviews within psychotherapeutic research will be explored. Inclusion and exclusion criteria will be shown, as well as the literature searches themselves, in table form. Chapter three will address how the material found in the literature search will be organized in this dissertation. Two different sets of either/or distinctions that emerge from the literature will be explained and defined in detail. The first distinction is between the two different perspectives of philosophical idealism and philosophical materialism. The second distinction is between two different psychotherapeutic perspectives or stances, the analytic and the empathic. Material will be organised according to both of these distinctions, the combining of which gives the four different perspectives shown below in a brief summary of the topics of the chapters. 

Chapters four to seven will review material found in the literature search as relating to the four different perspectives. Chapter four will review material relating to the analyticmaterialism perspective. This includes an analysis of the colonisation of Aotearoa, the ecological impact of this colonisation, and clinical implications for working with human destructiveness. Chapter five will review material relating to the empathic-materialism perspective. This includes a review of ways in which contact with nature can help humans, as well as an empathic stance for helping humans to bear the loss of natural environments. Chapter six will review material relating to the analytic-idealism perspective. This includes narcissistic and Oedipal dynamics in the human-nature relationship. Chapter seven will review material relating to the empathic-idealism perspective. This includes concepts of attachment and gender in the human-nature relationship. 

Chapter eight will relate the four perspectives to each other in a simple model, whilst chapter nine will provide discussion and a counter point to the model and material that the prior chapters focused on. In attempting to address the Aotearoa context more fully, biculturalism and ecopsychology will be discussed, as well as the role of language in the human-nature relationship.

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