Minneapolis Nature-Based Therapy
Psychotherapy for children and families in outdoor settings, engaging with nature as a therapeutic partner.
🌿 Research shows benefits from contact with nature that include the restoration of attention, stress reduction, positive mood states, emotional regulation and physiological health improvements. Engaging with the natural world promotes calm, alert states and provides an endless source of challenges that recruit the brain’s cognitive and emotional resources for new learning. 🌿
Kari Marie Kleven, LICSW
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.
We are finding ways to do more of life outside now, to be together and safe. Why not therapy too?
Parents often come to me with these types of concerns:
- I am overwhelmed with all that is happening in my life and the world, and I worry about how my stress is affecting my child.
- My child doesn’t listen to me and we are always getting into power struggles.
- I don’t know how to play with my child. I just don’t feel comfortable or enjoy it.
- I worry about our attachment.
- I don’t want to parent the same way I was parented.
- My child experienced a lot of hard stuff/trauma and I worry about how it is affecting them now or will in the future.
- My child is so anxious. They don’t want to leave my side. I need a break. It’s not good for either of us.
- My child doesn’t know how to share, always wants their way and gets in fights with their siblings and other kids. Sometimes they hit me too.
- My child can’t sit still, they are moving all of the time. They are about to be kicked out of daycare/school because of their behavior. The teachers want me to get an ADHD evaluation.
🌿 Nature has the power to make children healthier, happier and smarter.
But over the last few generations, childhood has moved indoors, leaving kids disconnected from the natural world. This worldwide trend has profound implications for children’s healthy development—and the future of our planet. 🌿
~ Children and Nature Network
What does nature-based therapy look like?
In Nature-Based Therapy, the “office” is the outdoors. After an assessment of your family’s needs, strengths and barriers we will create a treatment plan that will guide our work as we move into playing and learning together in nature - parents or caregivers too! Often we will follow your child’s lead, building trust and gaining insight into their inner world and needs. We may do activities or games designed to strengthen the parent-child attachment, enhance attention, support regulation or increase confidence: such as play hide and seek in the woods, figure out how to cross streams on slippery rocks, build forts, listen quietly to crickets, rock in hammocks, sled down hills or build a snowman. Being in nature can help us access the calm but active and alert states that lead to new learning, and we’ll reflect together on how your experiences in therapy can support the changes that you are hoping for in daily life.
Do we have to be outdoors type people or have special gear?
You do NOT have to be into nature (yet!) or have fancy jackets or boots to participate in nature-based therapy. You DO have to be willing to commit to doing sessions outdoors year-round. If you aren’t used to this you may feel uncomfortable at times, probably more so than your child! But this is part of therapy — moving to the edges of our comfort zones, with support, in order to grow. Your family’s culture and your history with the outdoors will be part of our assessment and will guide how we work together and you will always get to decide what feels okay for you. Outdoor gear for wet or cold weather will be available to loan as needed.
Where will the therapy take place?
Sessions will take place outdoors in natural spaces in or near Minneapolis.
We did sessions outside in the snow throughout most of the winter of 2021 (except during the polar vortex)! We watched spring arrive, found lovely shady spots to do therapy in the summer, breathed in those beautiful fall days. Now we are bundling up for another winter, watching the ice form on the creek and lakes and experiencing the first snows.
When meeting in person is not possible due to weather or sickness or transportation barriers that arise we are able to meet over video.
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