612 - Land-Based Healing: Relationship and Reciprocity

2 credits / 30 hours

This experiential course interweaves with 616: Land-Based Healing: Place and Praxis. The focus of this course is on land-based healing practices in art therapy, with the acknowledgement that “land-based healing” as a concept and lived experience is rooted in an Indigenous world view and way of being in relationship with the land and our non-human kin. We will explore the context of human estrangement from nature from eco-psychological and eco-feminist perspectives and discover methods to cultivate relationship and reciprocity with the natural world.

The course will include philosophical and theoretical orientations of contemporary art therapists focused on environmental art therapy and education in the context of nature-based art therapy, eco-psychology, and the development of an ecological identity. Students will explore sensory perception, mindfulness and embodiment practices within a nature-based setting and connect with the restorative, resourcing aspects of nature. Creativity, the creative process, and art making with an emphasis on the use of sustainable and nature-based materials in artmaking will be explored in the context of therapy, education, and social change with an emphasis on our relationship with the land and our collective responsibility to care for it.