Of the Human-Nature

«Theodore Roszak, in his book The Voice of the Earth, has argued that ecology and psychology need each other and that “repression of the ecological unconscious is the deepest root of the collusive madness in industrial society; open access to the ecological unconscious is the path to sanity”. Roszak points out that Jung’s idea of the “collective unconscious” originally included prehuman animal and biological archetypes, but later came to concentrate primarly on panhuman religious symbols. He proposes that we take the original meaning and call it the “ecological unconscious” as “the living record of cosmic evolution”. This may turn out to be a terminology that has a wide appeal, although I personally prefer Robert Jay Lifton’s idea of a “species self”. Calling some image or understanding “unconscious”, or even more, reifying it as “the unconscious”, may function to keep it unconscious. After all, we are trying to foster ecological consciousness, or “ecological conscience”, to use Aldo Leopold’s term.»

Several different diagnostic metaphors have been proposed to explain the ecopsychologically disastrous split – the pathological alienation – between human consciousness and the rest of the biosphere. It’s time to rewild and healing the mind or…?

Bibliographical reference

METZNER, Ralph. The Psychopathology of the Human-NatureRelationship in ROSZAK, Theodore, GOMES, Mary E. & KANNER, Allen D. Ecopsychology – Restoring the Earth, Healing the Mind. San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1995, p. 55-67.