Ecopsychology: One Planet, One Health

Marcella Danon

Keywords: ecopsychology, ecology, psychology, one health, planetary health, transdisciplinarity, personal growth; evolutionary challenge, ecological citizenship; green prescriptions

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Today we need a unified vision that opens the doors to new strategies to maintain a high level of individual, social and environmental health. It is necessary to bring together attention to the well-being of our home, ‘oikòs’, with that of ‘psyché’, body and spirit. This is the mission of Ecopsychology, which was born at the end of the 1980s in California - within the University of Berkeley - in total harmony with the ‘One Health’ and ‘Planetary Health’ approach, now increasingly widespread in the medical field, with important concrete implications for human health.
Health, in fact, is much more than simply absence of disease: individual health involves planetary health. In the Canmore Declaration (Alberta, Canada, 2018) it was defined in terms of “the interdependent vitality of all natural and anthropogenic ecosystems (social, political and otherwise)”.
Vitality does not only concern the good mechanical functioning of the body - human, in this case - but includes components on an emotional, value-based and spiritual level, it implies a unified vision of oneself, relational skills, the ability to give meaning to one's existence which goes beyond simple survival, a sense that emerges in the recognition of being part, an active and proactive part, in an increasingly wider network of relationships, up to including the entire planet. Health also arises from rediscovering our profound connection with the earth and with life: in increasingly highly urbanized societies, direct contact with the natural environment today acquires a therapeutic value that was previously taken for granted and is now increasingly rediscovered and promoted in the medical and healthcare field through green prescriptions: activities and experiences that doctors and healthcare professionals can recommend to patients based on their specific needs, including outdoor activities, applied ecopsychology, forestry therapies, social horticulture, environmental education , animal-assisted interventions.

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