Why Ecopsychology Needs Natural History

Abstract

As human-nature relationships become ever more tenuous, the promise of ecopsychology is more important than ever. But ecopsychology has tended to focus its attentive power on the human side of this relationship, on psychology, and has thus also tended to generalize when engaging the beyond-human, "eco" half of the equation. Often, nature stands in as an abstraction rather than a complex web of significant relationships. Natural history, as a practice of intentionally focused attention to specifics of the nonhuman world, offers a method for learning to see a richly animated world-and the patterns that connect us all. In the practice of doing natural history, signals originating from ecological realities alter sensory habits and perceptual expectations-and shape new ways of seeing. We become more perceptive, more ecologically informed, and more wholesome as our shifting sensibilities influence consciousness and actions. While the myriad nonhuman others gain proper names and identities and a literal presence in our minds, we become iteratively more receptive to the world beyond our human constructions. Here, we speculate that our modern human malaise becomes less salient as nonhuman wonders enter and reshape our minds.