A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF THE EFFECTS OF PSYCHOTHERAPY ...

interest in nature-based therapies and a resultant accumulating body of research shows that
exposure to pleasant nature stimuli promotes positive emotional states and respite from stress
(White & Heerwagen, 1998). Despite this increasing evidence, investigators have devoted
surprisingly little attention to the incorporation of natural environments into the psychosocial
treatment of difficulties in living.
It seems that throughout history, people have gone to considerable lengths to maintain
contact with nature, part of the justification for planning urban parks and natural areas and
preserving wilderness for public use. According to Ulrich (1993), Darwin himself may have
advanced this hypothesis. However, in 1984, Harvard researcher E. O. Wilson offered the term
“biophilia”, which he developed/conceived to describe “[T]he innately emotional affiliation of
human beings to other living organisms” (Wilson, 2007, p. 249; see also Kellert, 1997), as well as
a converse construct which he termed “biophobia”: “[T]he tendency to avoid potentially dangerous
elements of nature” (White & Heerwagen, 1998, p. 205). Wilson suggested that as humans
moved through the evolutionary process, a biologically-based attraction for nature and its life
forms developed (Kellert). The implication is that positive responses to natural landscapes had
adaptive significance during the evolutionary process. It is hypothesized that people respond
positively to environments which contain an abundance of resources, access to shelter, an
absence of hazards, and ease of movement, all of which increase chances for survival and, it is
suggested, arise from a desire to fulfill basic survival needs rather than notions of abstract, ideal
beauty (White & Heerwagen).
Numerous studies have demonstrated that inhabitants of industrialized societies prefer
specific landscapes (Ulrich, 1993; White & Heerwagen, 1998), namely open spaces and grassy
meadows, of the type commonly found in typical equine-friendly environments. Besthorn and
Saleeby (2003) argue for a nature-based therapy as an antidote to the stress of modern life, and
in the popular book Last Child in the Woods, Richared Louv (2006) describes what he terms
“nature-deficit disorder” to account for many of the ills noted in modern-day American culture,
particularly among children and youths.
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