Institute of Global Education,
in association with
United Nations Deptartment of Public Information
Belonging to Mother Earth Indigenous Wisdom and Healing
Project NatureConnect
October 5, 1998
For release at will:
THE GLOBAL CRISIS:
Controversial Nature Psychology Study Produces a Balanced Thinking Indicator.
At home, work and schools, public participation in a unique, 12 month, nature psychology study is underway across the internet. Initiated at the 1998 Belonging to Mother Earth Indigenous Wisdom and Healing Conference, the study is sponsored by Project NatureConnect and the Institute of Global Education in association with the United Nations Office of Public Information.
The study produces a unique Globally Balanced Thinking Score (GBT Score) that numerically indicates the amount of trust you can place in a leader, friend or yourself with respect to building balanced, interpersonal or environmental relationships.
The study is based on the observation that our society excessively separates people from nature. It recognizes that our runaway destructive ways seldom change because they are psychologically bonded addictions that only subside when treated as such. As we feel our disconnection, in compensation, we often bond to destructive substitute relationships that produce immediate rewards. The study measures the beneficial effects of psychologically reconnecting people with natural areas.
The study will continue until November, 2000 and be available for use in new millennium activities. It involves observing the effects of the Natural Systems Thinking Process originated by Dr. Michael J. Cohen, a veteran ecopsychologist, outdoor educator and researcher who directs Project NatureConnect and the Applied Ecopsychology program of Greenwich University.
The Natural Systems Thinking Process radically departs from "normal" therapeutic practices in that it includes making conscious sensory contacts with attractions found in natural areas. It has shown to improve personal, social and environmental relationships.
For 30 years, Dr. Cohen has camped out, taught and researched in natural areas throughout the seasons. He has developed a sensory nature reconnection psychology that lets nature help us bridge the hurtful schism between how we learn to think and the intelligent balancing process found in natural systems, including our sentient inner nature (inner child.)
Cohen makes his sensory science available, free, by enabling the public, via the internet or postal mail, to participate in the process and observe its beneficial effects firsthand. It is also available through his self-guiding training book "Reconnecting With Nature" (Ecopress). People continue to use the process because they experience the value of the it for themselves.
Many leaders take issue with Dr. Cohen's findings that we are born with at least 53, not just 5, natural senses. Cohen, in turn, suggests that because of our separation from nature, most of our leaders have become desensitized to life in balance, and that's a source of our troubles. He shows that each natural sense is an intelligence through which we would normally know, learn and gain satisfactions responsibly when living closer to nature. Many psychologists confirm his findings.
Educators question Cohen's suggestion that, "Nature is a vital part of our psyche that, to our loss, we injure, but can recover by psychologically reconnecting with it." However, Pulitzer-Prize winning sociobiologist Dr. Edward O. Wilson, of Harvard, affirms that people have an inherent biological need to be in contact with nature. He says Nature holds the key to our aesthetic, intellectual, cognitive, and even spiritual satisfaction.
"Our society's estrangement from nature produces sensory unfulfillment, the insatiable psychological wants we so often experience," says Cohen. "We feel there is never enough. These discomforting feelings trouble our thinking and emotionally draw us into greed and other destructive relationships that seldom exist in nature connected people(s)."
Best-selling researcher, Dr. Larry Dossey, M.D. notes that "The application of Cohen's nature connected psychology connects us with the often ignored source of spirit and wellness found in nature....it heals our deeper being." The process helps a person let nature nurture their natural ability to critically think with their heart.
Cohen has made available, free, the nature reconnection study and therapeutic activities he has researched. They are available through the study at http://www.ecopsych.com/millecopsy3.html
Postal Contact: P.O Box 1605, Friday Harbor WA 98250. (360) 378-6313.
Project NatureConnect
P.O. Box 1605 Friday Harbor, WA 98250
360-378-6313
www.ecopsych.com
Dr. Micheal J. Cohen, Director
nature@pacificrim.net
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