Hayley Marshall Counselling & Psychotherapy

PSYCHOTHERAPY IN THE OUTDOORS

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'You didn't come into this world.
You came out of it, like a wave from the ocean.
You are not a stranger here.'

Alan Watts


My work with clients in the outdoors connects psychotherapeutic ideas with those from environmental psychology,and ecopsychology, which focus on our interaction with our environment. Psychotherapy outside builds upon our experience of breathing, moving, and being in the natural world, developing a pathway for understanding and making changes to our inner world.

I work in a local outdoor setting with individuals for the therapy hour, or for longer sessions by negotiation. The therapy can take the form of simply walking and talking and/or using more focussed awareness exercises. We may decide to sit in a particular spot for the entire therapy or vary our route a little from session to session. There is potential for a great deal of flexibility here, governed by client preference and weather! However, all the traditional boundaries for effective psychotherapy will still apply, including a mutually agreed focus for our work and agreements concerning confidentiality. The latter, particularly important, as we may encounter other people whilst outside.

Clients do not need to be 'super fit' or even very outdoors orientated to benefit from this setting for their therapy.

I also work with groups in the outdoors, using a natural setting to promote personal awareness, groundedness, and connection with self, others, and the environment. This takes the form of weekends(or sometimes longer), based either under canvas or in a bunkhouse.

Related Websites

COUNSELLING AND PSYCHOTHERAPY OUTDOORS

CAPO is a professional members organisation whose aim is to support counsellors and psychotherapists in taking their therapy practice outdoors.

WILD GESTALT

Discussing psychotherapy and personal growth in the outdoors

ECOTHERAPY

Personal healing and healing for the earth

INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOR ECOPSYCHOLOGY

An informal, international, interdisciplinary virtual community devoted to reflecting on the questions which arise from an ecopsychological viewpoint

ECOTHERAPY UK

Eco therapy information for the UK

NATURE THERAPY, TRACKING AND NATURAL AWARENESS

A varied site covering many aspects of working therapeutically with nature.

CREATIVE COUNSELLING

Counselling Outdoors (based in Macclesfield) including Bereavement Walks.

THE WILDERNESS FOUNDATION

Increasing understanding of the value of wilderness by offering direct experience of wild places through trail programmes and through social projects that demonstrate how wilderness offers a vital key to the education and health of society and individuals.