Talks and Workshops
“I’ve extensively reseached how nature affects the self and lecture on the topic worldwide”
I have extensively researched how nature affects the self. Most recently, for example, I carried out a worldwide study interviewing people with exceptional experiences of spending long periods of time alone in nature.
My research has led me to conclude that cultivating the capacity to be alone in nature is an important pathway in the maturation of the self.
I regularly give lectures and workshops for academic institutions and other organisations on this subject, including TedX, the London School of Economics, the Insititute for Arts in Therapy and Education, UK, and Thomas Jefferson University, US,.
Topics I cover include:
How being alone in nature affects the self
Being “with” nature as a co-creative process
The role of sensory perception in the psychology of the self
The relationship between aesthetic experience and mental health
Using the human-nature relationship as a psychotherapeutic process
These topics draw upon theories and research from the fields of phenomenology, enactivism, aesthetic experience, perceptual studies, psychology of the self, and embodied cognition.