The Misdiagnosis: Rethinking “Nature-deficit Disorder”

Abstract

This study examines and critiques “nature-deficit disorder” (NDD), Richard Louv's popular theory of how and why children are alienated from nature. Specifically, I explore NDD within the context of one forest conservation education program that aligns with and operationalizes Louv's message. Underlying Louv's and forest educators' discourses are culturally specific assumptions about human-nature relationships. Both evoke a fall-recovery narrative—that children are separated from nature and must return—and promote science and naming to reconnect. I argue that, in the absence of deeper cultural examination and alternative practices, NDD is a misdiagnosis—a problematic contemporary environmental discourse that can obscure and mistreat the problem. I call on adults to rethink human-nature disconnectedness by returning to the psyche, digging deeper to the problem's cultural roots, and using nontraditional communication practices such as emotional expression and non-naming.

Keywords:

• Nature-deficit disorder
• Forest conservation education
• Environmental education
• Fall-recovery narrative
• Science
• Naming

Acknowledgements

This manuscript was derived from a Ph.D. dissertation (Karen A. Foss adviser). The author thanks Karen Foss, Tema Milstein, Jonathan B. Hill, Stephen Depoe, and the reviewers for their assistance and support.

Notes

1. Following other scholars (e.g., Haraway, 2008; Milstein, 2011; Milstein et al., 2011), instead of using human-nature and the environment/environmental, I use the terms human-nature and ecoculture, a move that helps avoid separating “nature” and “the environment” from humans.

2. For a comprehensive overview of environmental education research and diverse approaches, see Rickinson (2001).

3. In writing fieldnotes, I followed the methods of Bernard (2006), Emerson, Fretz, and Shaw (1995), and Lindlof and Taylor (2002). Procedurally, when using grounded theory, I employed open, analytical, and focused coding to develop and analyze the codes and categories from the research. Going back and forth between theory and research, I organized the codes into themes.

4. Merchant (1996) argues that a grand fall-recovery ideology stems from Christian biblical narratives of a fall from the Garden of Eden, caused by Eve. Bullis (1996) notes how many modern Western environmental discourses “depict a Judeo-Christian fall from grace and a vision of a single way to return to the Garden” (p. 136) and are rooted in Western patriarchy.

5. Essentially, enlightenment rationalism has positioned nature as a machine that is inferior to human intellect; the scientific method provided an objective way to analyze and control nature; and natural history offered methods to discover, describe, and catalog—and thus master over—nature (Opie & Elliot, 1996).

6. Illustrating this point, in an examination of US Americans' knowledge on climate change, Leiserowitz, Smith, and Marlon (2010) show that those with the most knowledge of climate change are most likely to deny climate change.

7. Briefly, the critique is that modern science overly relies on a scientific worldview of nature as a machine that humans reign over; utilizes reductionist methodologies; reinforces human-nature dualism; and plays a central role in environmental degradation (Palmer, 1998).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Elizabeth Dickinson

Elizabeth Dickinson (Ph.D., 2010, University of New Mexico) is an Assistant Professor of Communication in the Kenan-Flagler Business School and an adjunct faculty member in the Curriculum for the Environment and Ecology (CEE) at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill