A Therapist and an Environmentalist Walk Into a Bar…
How connection with nature brings wellbeing and environmental care to the same table
The therapist wants to help people feel better. The environmentalist wants to protect the planet. Before long, they are talking about something they both care about: how people build a relationship with the natural world.
Research on nature connectedness suggests that feeling close to nature is associated with both wellbeing and care for the environment. For therapists and environmentalists, this offers a reason to work together.
“I'm not really an outdoors person”
The following illustration is based on true events. The name, identifying details, and dialogue have been fictionalized to protect privacy.
Marcus is a Black man who grew up in a densely populated city neighborhood. He comes to therapy for anxiety: persistent worry, restless sleep, and the exhausting feeling that he always needs to be ready for whatever happens next.
When his therapist mentions the possibility of meeting outdoors, he is unimpressed.
“I'm not really an outdoors person.”
His therapist asks what “outdoors” means to him. Marcus pictures hiking, camping, bugs, and being somewhere unfamiliar. None of that sounds appealing.
Their conversation turns to places where he has felt comfortable and connected. He remembers the neighborhood park where family and friends regularly gathered for barbecues. Someone was always tending the grill. Children ran between the picnic tables. Friends lingered long after the food was gone.
He remembers those afternoons as time with his people. He had never thought much about the trees overhead or the grass beneath their feet. Nature was the background.
His therapist asks whether that park might feel like a comfortable place to meet. Marcus agrees to try it. Together, they choose a quieter time and discuss how to manage privacy in a public space.
The background comes into focus
During their first park session, the therapist invites Marcus to notice what is around him. He does not have to feel calm or enjoy the experience.
He notices the broad canopy above a picnic table. The shade reminds him of where his family used to spread out their food. He watches leaves move and remembers the breeze on hot afternoons. Along the path, he pauses beside plants he once passed without a glance.
Memories return with more detail: familiar voices, the smell of the grill, the feeling of having nowhere else he needed to be.
The people are still at the center of those memories. Now he notices what the park contributed to those afternoons, too.
Over several sessions, Marcus grows more comfortable paying attention to the park. Sometimes sitting beneath the trees helps him feel less caught up in worry. Sometimes the anxiety comes along anyway. The park becomes another place where he can practice the skills he is learning in therapy.
His interest grows as he returns to a familiar place and begins to notice what he had overlooked.
What the research adds
Environmental psychologist Kim-Pong Tam has studied how people's relationships with nature, including empathy for the natural world, relate to conservation behavior.
In Saving Mr. Nature, Tam, Sau-Lai Lee, and Melody Manchi Chao (2013) found that portraying nature with human characteristics increased connectedness and conservation behavior. Their analyses suggested that connectedness helped explain the relationship. These experiments tested portrayals of nature rather than therapy, but they suggest that how people relate to nature can influence their willingness to protect it.
Tam's separate 2013 paper, Dispositional empathy with nature, examined the tendency to empathize with the natural world and its relationship with conservation behavior. Both papers suggest that emotional relationships deserve attention in conservation efforts.
Lovati and colleagues (2023) studied nature connectedness in 271 adults while validating the Italian Connectedness to Nature Scale. Greater nature connectedness was associated with mental wellbeing and pro-environmental attitudes. Because the study used a survey, it cannot tell us whether connection caused those outcomes.
These studies did not test the therapeutic progression illustrated in Marcus's story. They do, however, give therapists and environmentalists a reason to explore how their work might overlap.
Caring for the park
As Marcus grows more attached to the park, he starts noticing litter along the path. The park holds good memories and has become a place where he practices managing anxiety. He wants to look after it.
Take 3 for the Sea is an Australian environmental organization that invites people to take three pieces of litter with them when they leave a beach, waterway, or any outdoor place. The goal is to reduce plastic pollution and protect marine life. You do not have to live near the ocean to participate; the practice extends to neighborhood parks and other everyday places.
After learning about the initiative, Marcus decides to collect three pieces of litter each time he leaves the park. He starts carrying a small bag and a litter grabber. Picking up a few discarded wrappers gives him a practical way to care for a place that matters to him.
This is his choice. It is not an assignment or a measure of therapeutic success. His anxiety care continues, and his relationship with the park now includes reciprocity: receiving support from a place and choosing to care for it in return.
Working together
Nature-informed therapists and environmentalists bring different expertise. Therapists can help people explore what a place means to them and how it fits into their care. Environmentalists can deepen their understanding of that place and offer practical ways to look after it.
To be honest, that was my ulterior motive for founding the Center for Nature-Informed Therapy: a chance for a psychologist to care for the planet. I wanted to help people find support in nature, with the hope that those relationships might also inspire them to care for the places that support them.
A partnership could begin in a neighborhood park, community garden, or shaded courtyard. Planning would need to take account of who uses the space, what makes it accessible, and whether people feel safe and welcome there.
Marcus's story asks us to reconsider whom we imagine when we say “nature person.” A family barbecue beneath city trees can be a meaningful nature experience, even when nobody calls it one.
If you work with a conservation organization or help care for a local outdoor space, consider partnering with a nature-informed therapist. A therapist could help participants explore their connection with the place, while your organization shares knowledge about it and offers ways to care for it.
Reach out to a therapist in your community or to us at the Center for Nature-Informed Therapy. We would welcome a conversation about what a partnership could look like in your community.
References
Tam, K.-P., Lee, S.-L., & Chao, M. M. (2013). Saving Mr. Nature: Anthropomorphism enhances connectedness to and protectiveness toward nature. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49(3), 514–521.
Tam, K.-P. (2013). Dispositional empathy with nature. Journal of Environmental Psychology, 35, 92–104.
Lovati, C., Manzi, F., Di Dio, C., Massaro, D., Gilli, G., & Marchetti, A. (2023). Feeling connected to nature: Validation of the connectedness to nature scale in the Italian context. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1242699.
Take 3 for the Sea. About the initiative.
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