The Ground
Beneath Our Work
Nature Informed Therapy and Care For a World in Need
Heidi Schreiber-Pan, Ph.D., LCPC
The book that brings the ROOTED™ framework to therapists, educators, healthcare workers, and every helper who believes the living world belongs in the work of healing.
Available in hardcover, paperback, and eBook — wherever books are sold. Book realese Earth Day 2026 by Chesapeake Publication.
What if the most powerful tool in your practice isn’t a technique,
but the living world outside your door?
The Ground Beneath Our Work introduces Nature-Informed Therapy (NIT) and Nature-Informed Care (NIC) — a flexible, evidence-informed framework for weaving nature into clinical practice, education, healthcare, faith communities, and everyday helping roles.
This is not a rigid manual. It is a grounded invitation to remember something very old: we have never not been in relationship with nature. And when we let that relationship back into our work, something shifts — in our clients, in our communities, and in ourselves.
With a foreword by Robert J. Wicks, Psy.D., author of It’s Good to Be Lost Once in a While (Oxford University Press).
The ROOTED™ Framework — Six Ways Nature Joins Your Work
At the heart of the book is a practical model you can start using this week
R — Regulate Attention Nature helps tired minds rest and refocus. Learn micro-protocols for attention restoration — in sessions, classrooms, and your own day.
O — Open the Senses Smell, sound, touch, taste — nature speaks to the body before it reaches the mind. Reawaken sensory pathways that screens and walls have quieted.
O — Optimize Dosage How much nature is enough? From daily microdoses to seasonal immersions, learn to prescribe a “balanced diet” of green for yourself and others.
T — Tend Relationships Connection is root system. Explore how nature strengthens attachment, heals loneliness, and transforms group dynamics — outdoors and in.
E — Enact Reciprocity & Meaning Awe, gratitude, and the Honorable Harvest. Move from consuming nature to belonging to it — and help clients do the same.
D — Design the Setting Let the room remember the forest. Biophilic design, nature metaphors, the Kawa Model, and simple ways to bring the living world indoors.
Written for the Whole Circle of Helpers
If you are a clinician (NIT)
This book offers you a clinical framework with ethical guidance, session tools, documentation practices, and case stories. You’ll find protocols you can integrate into licensed psychotherapy starting this week — plus a 30-day implementation plan designed for practicing therapists.
Counselors · Psychologists · Social workers · Psychiatrists · Marriage and family therapists
If you are a helping professional (NIC)
This book offers you a practical, flexible approach to bringing nature into your work — without crossing clinical lines. You’ll find exercises, reflections, and design principles that fit your setting and your people.
Teachers · School counselors · Nurses · Physicians · Chaplains · Park rangers · Coaches · Youth workers · Retreat leaders · Community organizers · Faith leaders
Throughout the book, gentle trail markers guide you to the sections written for your role: 🌿 For all practitioners · 🩺 For clinicians · 💭 Personal reflection
Inside the Book
“I cannot recommend this book highly enough. This work helps Western medicine recognize insights long understood within Indigenous traditions — that whole-person healing is rooted in our relationship with the non-human world.”
— Mark A. Salvatore, MD, MS, Harvard Medical School
About the Author
Dr. Heidi Schreiber-Pan, Ph.D., LCPC, is the founder and executive director of the Center for Nature Informed Therapy (CNIT) in Baltimore, Maryland. With over 20 years in the mental health field, she has pioneered the integration of nature into clinical practice through the ROOTED™ framework — training hundreds of therapists, educators, and helping professionals across the country.
Her research on nature, resilience, and spirituality has been conducted in collaboration with Loyola University Maryland, and her work has been featured in The New York Times. She is also the author of Taming the Anxious Mind: A Guidebook to Relieve Stress and Anxiety
.
Heidi grew up in the mountains of southern Bavaria, where the Alps framed her childhood and seeded a lifelong commitment to the healing power of the natural world. She lives in Maryland with her family.
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Book realease on Earth Day, April 22 2026.
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