Hello, and welcome. I am a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LICSW) who has spent my career working in community mental health with young children and families as a therapist and supervisor. I love my work! I opened this practice in December, 2020 because I am passionate about taking the therapeutic process beyond the limitations of the office walls, to interact with the natural living world around us.
The benefits of spending time in nature are increasingly well documented across disciplines: public health researchers describe a multitude of health related evidence related to nature-based activities; a growing number of doctors are prescribing nature for their patients; occupational therapists are offering nature-based outdoor play groups and camps; news outlets run stories about how workers are less stressed and more motivated when they are surrounded by plants, water and other natural elements; early childhood conferences focus on getting kids outside more; nature-based preschools are thriving; counselors are offering "walk and talk" therapy.
Nature-based therapy fits into this picture as part of a diverse range of ecotherapy practices that involve partnering with nature for the joint purposes of promoting healing for both humans and the earth. The authors/counselors that coined the term as I am using it (see Resource section) describe how nature can be an ideal place, partner and guide in therapeutic practices. I am entering this emerging field with excitement, as both a learner and an experienced clinician. My therapeutic practice has always centered on relationships -- between children and the adults who love and care for them, between myself as therapist with both children and parents, and between families and their communities. Nature-based therapy simply brings this other essential relationship into the mix; the relationship we all have with the natural world.
So this is not just playing in the woods. My practice is built upon the solid foundation of years of experience working with children and families using relationship-based interventions with a developmental lens, incorporating play and body/affect regulation strategies and working within a Child-Parent Psychotherapy framework to address early life stressors and trauma. I will continue to offer these high-quality clinical interventions. And by engaging with nature as a therapeutic partner -- bringing therapy outside in client-centered, intentional ways -- we can enrich those interventions and have access to additional, powerful resources to help families address their goals, increase emotional and physical well-being, promote healing and resilience, and expand the scope of possibilities for truly vital engagement with the world.
