"Friday Harbor, WA (MMD Newswire) November 24, 2009 -- Researchers at Project NatureConnect and Akamai University, a non-profit online school in Hawaii, find that nature-exploitive tendencies found in contemporary society have contaminated the pure and natural way that our psyche is inherently designed to think and feel.
The Project's studies show that our contamination of our mentality underlies our increasing personal social and environmental disorders. The remedy they have created for this mind pollution is to green the therapies and psychologies we use for healing. To this end, Project NatureConnect offers a sensory science that enables us to connect our healing techniques with the healing powers of authentic nature, backyard or backcountry.
The greening of psychology and healing therapies by the UNESCO approved program consists of learning how to enlist the natural organic powers of nature to help us recycle the most troublesome contaminates in our mind. Online ecologically and psychologically sound training and degree programs are offered to enhance careers. Students and professionals have added them to many disciplines and noted that more balanced and environmentally friendly growth and relationships result.
Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D. director of the program and the author of "Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature" says, "We suffer because we deny that our society's nature-exploitive bias makes the way we think believe it is superior to the attraction-sensitive way that nature works to produce its balanced perfection and restorative qualities."
The pioneering mission of Project NatureConnect is to increase personal, social and environmental well-being. It accomplishes this by helping individuals genuinely connect their thinking and feeling with the sensory intelligence of nature's self-correcting flow, in and around them. The online program's low-cost, UNESCO approved, training courses and degrees at Akamai University enable students to make conscious sensory contact with the life-wisdom of the eons that they discover within themselves and in natural areas, backyard or back country.
A student in the program wrote in their field report journal: "In the night rain I have gained permission to approach and learn from a tree in our yard. I love this tree because it is grounded, steadfast, and patient with the cycles of nature. By standing with it I realize that I love myself because I am grounded, steadfast, and patient with the cycles of nature. I can see how this tree has helped me turn inward and enjoy my calm, quiet depth and it is a great joy for me to share these activities with others and help them have similar experiences. This tree has showed me how to appreciate cool rain simply by allowing myself to sense it without preconceived judgment. If we want nature's wisdom and miracles to assist our personal lives and life on Earth, it makes sense to let attraction contacts with nature help us awaken nature's miraculous creativity and wisdom within us."
For additional information and free materials:
www.ecopsych.com
360-378-6313
nature@interisland.net
###
Program Founder and Director:
Recipient of the 1994 Distinguished World Citizen Award, Ecopsychologist Michael J. Cohen, Ph.D., is a Program Director of the Institute of Global Education, where he coordinates its Integrated Ecology Department and Project NatureConnect. He also serves on the faculty of Portland State University and Akamai University. Dr. Cohen has founded sensory environmental education outdoor programs independently and for the National Audubon Society and Lesley University (AEI). He conceived the 1985 National Audubon Conference "Is the Earth a Living Organism," and is an award winning author of "Educating, Counseling and Healing With Nature," "The Web Of Life Imperative"and "Reconnecting With Nature." A video about his lifework may be viewed at http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1357054/
"We cannot win the battle to increase the well-being of the web of life, that includes our life, without strengthening our natural senses, our emotional bonds with nature - for we will not fight to save what we do not love."
- Michael J. Cohen
http://www.ecopsych.com/mjcohen.html
Email: nature@interisland.net
360-378-6313, Pacific Time Zone