Growing Well: Providing Secure Attachment and Reconnection to Physis Through Eco-TA and Farming

Abstract

This article explores how farm-based ecotherapy using a transactional analysis approach addresses the links between structural oppression and the symptoms of poor mental health that arise from alienation and isolation. It uses a case study of the development of Growing Well, a cooperative that supports people with poor mental health, to examine the value of using transactional analysis theories in the development of an outdoor therapeutic space on a farm. It explores how a cultivated outdoor space can offer a secure attachment experience that helps people with mental health problems to regulate themselves. The article explores the connections between ecotherapy and eco-TA and examines the nature of homonomy and physis.

Keywords:

• Core self
• eco-TA
• ecotherapy
• ecopsychology
• green care
• homonomy
• physis
• relational needs
• secure attachment
• radical psychiatry

Disclosure statement

The author declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Beren Aldridge

Beren Aldridge, MSc, Provisional Teaching and Supervising Transactional Analyst (psychotherapy), is a psychotherapist, supervisor, and trainer in private practice in Kendal, United Kingdom. He is currently the chair of the Training, Standards, and Accreditation Committee for the United Kingdom Association of Transactional Analysis (UKATA); one of the United Kingdom’s delegates to the European Association for Transactional Analysis; and an editorial board member of the Transactional Analysis Journal. In 2004 he was a founder of Growing Well, a farm-based mental health charity that he managed for 10 years. Beren can be reached at Porchlight Practice, 122 Highgate, Kendal, LA9 4HE, United Kingdom; email: [email protected].