Oct 04 2007
What ever happened to eco-psychology?
As I transition from writing for The Man to writing as an independent contractor, I’m casting about for an interesting topic to shop around to the environmental magazines. Meanwhile, several people, in quite random fashion, have started talking to me about something called “eco-psychology.”
So I found a mental health professional who practices in this area (locally even), and have made an appointment with him–not to find out where my own neuroses lie, since I know those all too well, but to find out what is troubling people, and what is keeping otherwise caring and conscientious folks from moving from a studied apathy to awareness, and from awareness to action on the topic of — let’s just call it Biodiversity Crash.
I did find a few books on the topic, even a website dedicated to Conservation Psychology, but most of the writing I am finding seems to have been done at least four or more years ago. So how come we’re not hearing about this issue? Is it that it’s patently obvious people are totally numbed out by the rate of change in all aspects of their lives, and we don’t need a PhD to tell us that? I don’t know, but I think it’s interesting, and I’ll write more when I find out more.
Meanwhile, I have learned enough to know that what I may really be interested in is what might be called “applied environmental psychology:” social marketing. More on this soon.